Inherit the Wind
by Susan Hillwig
Summary: A DC2 collected story! Before Barry Allen, before Jay Garrick, another man had been granted the power of the Speed Force. For the first time, learn the full origins of Windrunner AKA Max Mercury!
1. Secrets

_The best/worst thing about writing WWQ is that many of these characters come with very little baggage. There's not a lot of landmark moments for these guys and gals, so it leaves you a lot of wiggle room for story writing...but it also means that there's TONS of things that are completely unknown about them, and you're left to figure out who these people are (see the intro I wrote for my Nighthawk story for an example). Then you get somebody like Max Mercury, whose un-chronicled history actually defines the character. We know little bits, just snippets, but no real substance -- it's even debatable that "Max Crandall" is his real name -- and he seems bound and determined to keep us all in the dark. But we do know for sure that he was born in the early 1800s and that he got his powers from a Blackfoot shaman...which means his beginnings are smack-dab in the middle of my territory, and no way am I gonna pass up adding such a unique character to the WWQ roster._

_So the story here is an exercise in reverse-engineering: trying to figure out what "the Zen master of the Speed Force" was like when he was just a regular guy, and what sorts of things would lead him to play his life so close to the vest centuries later. It's also the beginning to a much larger tale that will play out for many years to come in DC2, in ways you can't imagine. If you stick around, I promise you won't be disappointed._

_**Disclaimer:**__ All characters in this story are owned by DC Comics._

_**Continuity:**__ Originally posted on the DC2 fanfiction site as Weird Western Quarterly #8-9. For a link, please click on the homepage listed under my profile._

**INHERIT THE WIND**

**Part 1: Secrets**

_**1837:**_

It all started with a bolt of lightning.

The storm had hung over Manchester for most of the day, rumbling at the townsfolk below and occasionally spitting a bit of drizzle on them. It wasn't until right around suppertime that those gray clouds went all the way black, and it started a-rainin' and a-hailin' and a-thunderin' like the Judgment Day had come. The Maxwell place lay over on the edge of town, so it was spared the full brunt of the storm's fury, but one lightning bolt got a mite adventurous and came by for a visit, crashing smack dab into the little barn out back and setting it ablaze quick as a wink. Despite the danger that another lightning strike could come down, Chris Maxwell ran out into the storm, his father Elias right behind. The two of them rushed to the barn and threw the doors wide, then set about getting the horses and whatever else out before the whole structure went up.

Luckily for the Maxwells, the rain managed to keep the fire from spreading beyond the barn, which smoldered on for most of the evening -- by sunup the next day, all that remained was blackened timbers and charred debris. Though they didn't expect to find much, Chris and his father spent the day combing through the remains to see if anything was salvageable. They turned up some metal tools, and more than a few nails, then Chris uncovered something that took him quite by surprise: an old trunk, scorched by the flames but otherwise intact. He called out to Elias, who was just as surprised by the trunk's appearance as his son. "Well, I'll be...I'd forgotten all about this," he said as he knelt down beside it.

"What is it?" The young man couldn't recall ever seeing the trunk before.

"This belonged to your sister," Elias replied, wiping ash from the cracked leather surface. "We'd stowed it and some other things of hers in the barn after we moved here. We couldn't bear to part with them just yet, but there was no room for it all in the house."

"This was Christina's?" His whole life, Chris had been told about his older sister, who had died not long before he was born. She'd been rather young when she passed away, only fifteen, and his parents had often commented over the years on how much he resembled her -- they had the same dark brown hair, the same sort of laugh -- they'd even named him after Christina, in a way. Sometimes he felt like he had a twin, unmet and unseen, who would someday turn up and properly introduce herself. And now there was a part of her right here before him, something more than just an oft-told story. Chris put his hands on his knees and looked at the trunk, saying, "Do you think anything inside survived?"

"I don't know, let's see." He flipped the latches and pulled the lid open, revealing piles of scorched garments. "Looks like all that heat baked everything inside." Elias pushed his hand through the garments to see if anything beneath was intact, then he let the lid fall shut, saying, "It's all ruined." The man stood up and knocked ash off his trousers, then pulled out a pocket watch from his vest. "Damn, it's almost noon," he muttered. "I've got to get cleaned up and head over to Old Man Foster's place."

"I thought you'd finished your business with him last week?" Chris asked.

"I did...then he changed his mind _again_. He wants to rewrite the whole damn will over." Elias gave him a sideways glance, smiling. "These are the sort of things you'll have to look forward to once your schooling's done."

The young man nodded, but didn't smile back. Elias Maxwell was a born lawyer, and he insisted that his son follow in his footsteps. Chris would be leaving home in a few months to attend his father's _alma mater_ and earn a law degree of his own, though his heart most certainly wasn't in it. He wasn't rightly sure _what_ he wanted to do with his life, but after clerking in his father's office for the past couple years, he knew that a lifetime of drawing up documents and arguing legal precedents wasn't for him.

Unfortunately, he had yet to think of a way to tell his father that.

Elias gestured to the debris around them, saying, "I want you to go over to Henderson's Livery and borrow a wagon so you can haul all this stuff off while I'm gone. Just take it on over to the ravine and dump it in."

"What about the trunk?"

"Take that over, too. There's nothing left in there worth keeping." The man started to head for the house, then stopped and added, "Don't tell your mother, it might upset her."

Chris did as his father ordered, and spent a good part of the afternoon tossing timbers into the wagon and working up a good sweat. He kept hesitating whenever he passed the trunk, though. It just didn't seem right to throw it away like all the other debris, even though it was obviously worthless now. He knew it was strange that he felt sentimentality over someone he'd never actually known, but that was the best way to describe it. Eventually, the time came to add it onto the wagon and cart it away. As he picked it up, however, he began to feel the bottom give out. "Aw no...just hold together for another minute," Chris pleaded as he rushed to the wagon, but the trunk soon split open, spilling the charred contents everywhere.

He cursed under his breath, glaring at the mess at his feet, then knelt down in the midst of it as he caught sight of a small leather-bound book. _That's strange_, he thought, _I didn't see that in there before._ He picked it up and carefully turned it over in his hands. The cover was illegible, and the edges of the pages were blackened, but when he opened it, he found that most of the interior had survived the fire fairly well, considering how brittle with age the book was. _It looks like a diary_, Chris thought as he examined the handwritten pages. He couldn't believe the luck: after nearly two decades of sitting in an old trunk, plus going through a fire, his sister's diary had managed to survive. He looked over the remains of the trunk once more, hoping to discover some other trinkets, but the diary was the only thing worth salvaging. _How'd we miss it the first time, though?_ he wondered, then saw that there appeared to have been a false bottom on the trunk -- nothing elaborate, just a thin piece of wood covered with the same fabric as the rest of the trunk's lining -- when the bottom gave out, the diary tumbled out of its hiding spot.

Pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket, Chris wrapped up the diary, then tucked it under the front porch -- after he'd finished cleaning up the debris, he'd retrieve it and give it a proper look-over. As he began to steer the horse-drawn wagon towards the ravine, he couldn't help but smile a little: after eighteen years, he was finally going to meet his sister...albeit in a rather unconventional manner.

* * *

It was past sundown by the time Chris got a chance to examine the diary in detail. Getting it into the house had been no problem, but he just couldn't find a good excuse to get himself away from his parents after supper -- his father wanted to talk about the university, and which teachers had been there during his father's school days that Chris should look up, while his mother continued to fuss over the notion of her beloved son leaving home for the first time. He finally fended them off by insisting how tired he was after all that hard work today (not completely a lie), and that he wanted nothing more than to turn in. Once he was sure that they wouldn't disturb him up in his room, he lit a small lamp on his desk and pulled out the diary.

The delicateness of the pages worried him, so he handled them as little as possible, using just enough pressure to hold the book open as it lay on the desk. The first dozen or so pages were a loss, but he soon reached a section that was fairly intact:

_Feb. 23__ - I saw the Fennimores' new farmhand again today. A very _

_handsome young man, though I still find him a bit coarse. He was better_

_at keeping his tongue civil today, however, and even attempted small talk._

_Mother shooed him away the moment she saw us conversing. Such a_

_shame, as I was rather enjoying his company._

"Sounds like you were a little bit sweet on him, Sis," Chris said under his breath. He wondered what year the entry was from -- he thought he'd seen "1818" written on one of the previous pages, which would make Christina about fourteen at the time she wrote it, but it was too badly damaged to be certain. To be sure, it had to be back when his family was living in Hancock, about thirty miles away -- he'd only been an infant when his parents had moved to Manchester, but he knew his sister had already passed on by then. He read further on, skimming entries that contained nothing but idle gossip about people he'd never heard of, until he came to a partially-burned page:

_...meadow. I thought for sure someone would come across us, but Jim_

_insisted that no one knew we were out there. When we reached the spot_

_he'd picked out, I found a fine picnic lunch awaiting us, all laid out on a_

_blanket. I must admit, his thoughtfulness took me by surprise! We ate and_

_talked for what seemed like the whole afternoon, and Jim acted like a_

_perfect gentleman throughout, asking for only a few kisses to tide him over._

_I almost wish he wouldn't be so gentlemanly, but I understand his hesitation,_

_what with the way Father had..._

And that was it, the rest of the entry having gone up in smoke. Chris supposed it was for the best, anyways: he felt like a peeping tom after reading that. _I wonder if this 'Jim' fella is the farmhand she was talking about earlier?_ he thought. The entry itself was undated, but it came not long after a more mundane one labeled for June the fifth, so he assumed it must be in the same year as the first one he'd read. He continued on, finding more and more mentions of Jim, all of them overflowing with love and longing -- again, that peeping tom feeling came over him, so he tried not to linger. There were mentions here and there about their parents, especially their father, who Christina made out to be almost livid over the whole affair. It seemed to fit with how the man had acted over the years as Chris grew up: appearances were very important to Elias, in both his legal profession and his family life, and Chris was sure that the idea of his little girl being seen with a farmhand must have incensed him. It was sad, though, to be reading about how much in love his sister was, knowing that she'd never live to really see it blossom. Then he came across an entry that just about knocked the wind out of him:

_Oct. 16__ - I cannot deny it anymore. I'd thought it was just some minor_

_malady, but after Father dragged me to the doctor today, there is no doubt:_

_I am going to have a baby. In my heart, I'm overcome with joy at the_

_thought of bearing Jim's child, but my mind is too clouded by fear brought_

_on by how Father is reacting. I cannot bring myself to write down the_

_horrid things that he has said, nor can I even find solace in Jim's arms, for_

_Father tried to have him arrested and he had to flee town. I imagine him_

_out there now, alone and in danger simply because he loves me. I can only_

_pray that the Good Lord will keep him safe until we are together again._

"A baby?" Chris whispered. Of all the things his parents had told him about Christina, they'd certainly never mentioned anything about her being pregnant before she died. He didn't know why, but a cold chill started racing up his spine at the thought of it. Not caring now if he wrecked the already-damaged pages, he started flipping ahead, reading through one entry after the next as fast as he could. The dates became rather sporadic, with sometimes a full week passing before his sister made another entry -- they mostly consisted of her alternately pining away for Jim and pleading for understanding from their father. It was heartbreaking to read, but Chris kept on going, until he finally reached the last entry:

_May 19__ - Today I received a glimmer of hope, the first I've had in months._

_Jim sent me a letter via a new friend of his, along with a small sum of_

_money. He says that he's made his way into the wilds of the northwest, and_

_that his friend, a gentleman by the name of Tom Hawkins, has found him_

_work as a trapper and guide. Mr. Hawkins has even kindly offered to share_

_his home with us, for Jim wishes me to join him out on the frontier. I have_

_heard tales of how rough it is out in the untamed territories, especially for a _

_young woman, but Jim assures me that I'll be perfectly safe. He says that_

_Echo Valley is a beautiful, peaceful place, a virtual Eden, and that our child_

_will grow up strong and proud there. Oh, how I wish I could be there now!_

_But I have felt so ill lately that I am afraid to begin the journey. Once the_

_baby comes, I will..._

Just as before, the entry came to an abrupt halt -- the diary's remaining pages had fallen to ash, leaving his sister's final thoughts unknown. Chris sat back in his chair, staring at the book as it lay in the pool of lamplight, and ruminated on what he'd just read. _Why didn't Mother or Father ever tell me about this? Did they think it might upset me?_ he thought. On the few occasions when his parents had broached the subject of Christina's actual death, the most they would tell him was that she died after a long illness, nothing more. _Perhaps she died in childbirth, and the baby...oh my God..._

He leaned over the book once again and reread the date of the last entry. If he was correct in his earlier assumption that the diary had been started in 1818, then this meant that the final entry had been written on May nineteenth, 1819...two days before Chris himself had been born. "No...no, that can't be right..." he said to himself, shaking his head as he did so. "You messed up on the dates somewhere, you're not...you _can't_ be..." He got up from his chair and paced over to the window -- his room was on the second floor, and it afforded him a view of where the barn had been, now just a rectangular black stain in the moonlit yard. He leaned his head against the window frame and stared down at it as he tried to reason his way out of the conundrum, but it soon proved impossible, especially when he realized that, if he did have the years in the diary correct, Christina had not once mentioned their mother being pregnant -- considering her own delicate condition, such a fact would not likely go unnoted.

"But you've seen your own birth certificate," he told himself, grasping at straws. "Right there in black and white: Christopher Wade Maxwell, born to Elias and Ruth Maxwell..." Then it occurred to him that, with his father's legal expertise, he could probably alter such a document very easily, assuming that he hadn't just bribed the doctor outright when Chris had been born. With a shuddering sigh, he put his hands over his face -- he was exhausted, and not just from the late hour. He needed to sleep on this, just push it to one side of his brain and let it sit there until morning.

And then...and then he'd have to find a way to speak with his parents about this.

* * *

Three days came and went before Chris found the strength within himself to broach the subject. It was more than a matter of courage, however: like many children, he'd been taught from a young age to not question his elders, and that lesson remained in his mind as he approached adulthood. To call into doubt something as monumental as this was almost unthinkable. But he had to do it, at the very least so he could once again sleep through the night and not lay awake staring at the ceiling, wondering "What if?"

He waited until after supper, when his parents had retired to the sitting room -- they sat opposite each other before the lit fireplace, his mother working on her sewing and his father perusing a copy of the _Manchester Courier_. Chris stood in the doorway, looking at the serene little picture they presented, then he suddenly recalled an incident from when he was eight years old: him standing on a thick tree branch hanging over the rapid currents of the Warrior River, while his friends stood safely on the bank and dared him to jump in. His stomach had been in knots from fear, just as it was now, but in the end he'd jumped...and now the time had come to jump again. "Father, could I...I need to talk to you...to both of you," he said haltingly.

They both laid aside what they were doing, Elias saying, "Of course, son. What's on your mind?"

He took a deep breath, thinking once again of jumping in the river, and said, "Remember the other day, when we were cleaning up what was left of the barn, and we...we found the trunk...Christina's trunk..."

Ruth's eyes widened a little, and she looked to her husband. "You didn't tell me you found..."

"It was wrecked," he replied. "There was nothing left worth saving, and I didn't want to bother you with it."

"But there _was_ something left." Chris stepped fully into the room and pulled the diary out from behind his back. "I found this...it'd been hidden in the bottom, and I found it when the trunk fell apart. It got damaged pretty bad, but there was enough left that I...I read it. I read it and I have to know."

"You have to know _what_?" Elias asked him coldly.

"Before she died, Christina wrote that she was going to have a baby...and the last intact entry in here was dated two days before I was born." Chris was amazed at the calmness of his own voice when he said, "Now I know how insane it sounds, but please..._please_ tell me: was Christina really my mother?"

The room was deathly silent. Then, slowly, Ruth got up from her chair and approached Chris with tears in her eyes. She placed her hands on either side of his face for a moment, gazing up at him, then lay her head on his shoulder and began crying in earnest. He wrapped his arms around her, not knowing what else to do, and said, "I'm sorry, Mother, I'm sorry, but after reading the diary, I thought..."

"We never should have lied to you," Ruth said quietly, still crying.

Chris's back immediately stiffened. He pulled away and looked down at her, his own eyes wide now as he struggled to find words, but all that came out of his mouth was, _"Why?"_

"Because Jim Crandall was nothing but no-account white trash," Elias said, still sitting in his chair. He glared at the young man, unmoving, the light from the fireplace reflecting off his spectacles -- it made his eyes appear to be filled with flame, and judging by his tone of voice, they may as well have been. "He was a drifter with no money, no prospects, and absolutely nothing to offer a woman except his own sick lusts. He _raped_ our only daughter, and when consequences came from it, he ran off like a coward."

"He ran because you wanted him in jail," Chris replied as he held up the diary. "They loved each other, and he was willing to support her, but you..."

"_Support her_? Are you talking about that ridiculous offer he made to have her live out in the damned wilderness with some crazy mountain man and a bunch of Indians?" Elias got up and stormed over to where the young man stood. "Christina was just a little girl, so maybe to her it sounded like a fine idea, but I knew better, and I beat that notion out of her head right quick."

"You...you didn't..." But he could tell by the way his mother...no, his _grandmother_ tensed up as Elias talked that the man meant what he said in the literal sense. "You _beat_ her...your own _pregnant_ daughter...that's why she gave birth so soon after getting that letter, isn't it? She told you about it, and you beat her so hard she went into labor."

"It's all Crandall's fault, he turned her against us. Her death is on his hands, not mine, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let him taint another generation of this family." He snatched the diary out of Chris's hand and turned towards the fireplace.

Chris realized what was coming, and tried to grab it back, crying out, "No, for God's sake, don't..." But Elias pushed him away, then threw the diary into the fire -- the already-damaged book went up in a flash. "You had no right to do that!" he said, and made to strike him, but the man caught his fist and struck Chris himself, slapping him hard across the face.

"I had _every_ right," Elias told him. "I took responsibility for you, I raised you, I treated you as my own son, and how do you repay all that? By taking the side of a man you've never even met!" He struck him again, bloodying the young man's nose. Chris was too stunned by the act to even block him -- Elias hadn't laid a hand on him since he was six years old.

"Elias, please, stop hurting him," Ruth begged. "He didn't know. We should have told him..."

"After what that bastard did to our daughter?" he snapped at her. "We took Chris away from Hancock to keep him from ever finding out about all this. I made sacrifices, I gave up my practice..."

"And you _lied_ to me _my entire_ _life_!" Chris broke free of Elias's grip and glared at the man. "You raised me to believe in truth and the law and in doing what was right, but all the while you've been manipulating just what 'the truth' really is. You're nothing but a hypocrite."

"How dare you talk to me like that! I'm your father..."

"_No, you're not!_" He was surprised at how easily those words came out of his mouth, but it was the truth -- at the moment, it was one of the few things about his life that he knew to _be _the truth. "My real father's out there somewhere, probably wondering what ever became of the child he helped create, but thanks to you, he'll never know. You keep saying that Jim Crandall took your daughter away from you, but you don't seem very concerned that you took _me_ away from _him_."

"Are you saying that you'd rather be the son of some illiterate white trash than a member of a respectable family?" Elias asked incredulously.

"I _am_ the son of 'white trash', as you keep calling him. And as far as this family being respectable goes...I think I lost all respect for _you_ about five minutes ago."

The man's hand came up once more, ready to strike, but he never carried through. Instead, he slowly lowered it, saying to Chris, "Get out."

"What?"

"I said 'Get out'." Elias took hold of Chris's shirt collar and began to drag him out of the sitting room. "I want you out of this house. _Right now_. If you don't want to be a part of this family anymore, then you can't live under this roof."

"Let go of me!" Chris tried to twist free, but only managed to rip his shirt. "You can't just toss me out like this!"

"I most certainly can. I gave you more than your so-called 'real father' ever could have, and you don't seem to appreciate it one bit...so I think it's time you learned what it's like to _not_ have such things." Elias opened the front door and pushed Chris down the porch steps. "You've brought all this on yourself, you know," the man said as he looked down on him from the porch, the sounds of Ruth's sobbing echoing out the open door. "I tried to mold you into a decent member of society, but it looks like that Crandall blood in you runs too deep. It makes you disrespectful, rebellious, and I won't have that." He turned and walked back inside, pausing at the threshold to say over his shoulder, "While you're sleeping out in the woods tonight, I want you to think really hard about who's been actually been a father to you all this time: myself, or a stranger who abandoned you the moment he found out you existed." And with that, he slammed the door on the young man, cutting off Ruth's pleas to her husband to let the poor boy back into the house.

Chris stood at the foot of the steps, staring at the closed door and fighting the urge to race up there and begin pounding on it. He knew there was no way Elias would let him back inside the house tonight, the man was far too angry to listen to him right now. He'd have to find a place to pass the night away and wait until tomorrow.

And then what? Reasoning with him would probably do no good: Elias Maxwell was a stubborn man who believed he'd been doing the right thing for eighteen years, and Chris doubted that he could shake that belief. So that left him little choice but to bow to the man's wishes and play the obedient son, just as he'd unknowingly been doing his entire life. In a flash, Chris could see the rest of his days spooling out in front of him: spending years at a school he didn't wish to attend, then countless more after that at a legal job he didn't want, probably married to a woman that Elias already had picked out for him, and all the while he'd have to smile and be polite and pretend that everything was perfect, that this whole ugly incident had never happened...just as Ruth had been having to do all this time, even though she obviously wasn't in favor of it.

Chris sat down on the ground beside the porch, the setting sun casting a deep, black shadow of the house over him -- it matched his mood perfectly. _Why, Lord?_ he thought as he tried to wipe away the blood that collected on his upper lip. _Why did you let me find that diary? Why couldn't you have let me live my life without knowing all this? What good is it for me to know if I can't do anything about it?_

But there _was_ something he could do, he realized, the one thing that Elias had been so desperate to prevent: he could find his real father. The diary was gone, but Chris remembered well the name of the man who'd helped his father, and the place where he lived. It was a long shot, terribly long, but if he tracked his father down, perhaps then he would finally learn what really happened all those years ago. Even if what Elias said was true, even if Jim Crandall wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, at least he'd be able to hear it from the man's own lips.

He got up and walked across the yard, towards the road that would lead him into Manchester proper -- they'd been boarding their horses at the livery since the barn burned down, and he needed to get there before Mr. Henderson turned in for the night. As he reached the road, he turned back and looked for a long time at the place he'd called home his whole life. Everything that he was had been defined by what he'd experienced within those walls...but now, he wasn't even sure _who _that person really was. _But I'm going to find out_, he thought. _I don't care how long it takes, or how far I have to go, I'm going to find out what's been kept from me all this time._

With nothing more than the clothes on his back, Chris Maxwell set off down the road to Manchester, repeating three things over and over in his mind until he was sure he'd never forget them:

_Jim Crandall._

_Tom Hawkins._

_Echo Valley._

* * *

The snowdrifts were piling high against the collection of buildings that made up the trading post known as Howling Forks. The place got rather inhospitable that time of year, and winter hadn't even fully set in yet, but the weather didn't stop some of the trappers and hunters in the area from putting away their solitary habits for one night to bask in a little Christmas cheer with their fellow man. Songs of both a traditional and bawdy variety sounded off the walls as burly men wrapped in animal furs and woolen blankets gathered 'round the pot-bellied stove in the main building, upon which a coffee pot filled with apple brandy was warming. This far deep into the wilderness, Howling Forks was the closest one could get to civilization.

The door opened, admitting two heavily-bundled figures along with an inordinate amount of snowflakes. The men furthest from the stove protested against the sudden burst of icy air, and continued to do so for a minute after the door shut. "Kubert, you old buzzard!" the larger of the two newcomers shouted to the elderly man who ran the post. "Ain't you dead yet?"

"Not 'til you pay me back that ten dollars I loaned you," Kubert answered, then walked over and clapped the man on the back. "Merry Christmas, MacHenry. It's good to see you." He then peered over at the second figure still standing by the door, saying, "What's that skinny thing behind you? Did you up an' get yourself a squaw?"

"Naw, this here's some extra baggage I picked up in Fort Collins." He turned and yelled, "Maxwell! Ain't you got no manners? Get on over here an' say hello."

Slowly, Chris Maxwell walked to where the two men stood, peeling off the scarf wrapped around his face. The young man's stubbly cheeks looked sunken in, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he tried to talk. "G-guh-good evening, sir."

"Boy, you look like you're about done in," Kubert said. "You feel okay?"

"I'm f-f-fine, sir. J-just c-c-c-c-cold."

"I'll say." Though he didn't look frostbitten yet, the young man's face had a dangerously-pale pallor. "You're new to these parts, ain't ya?" Chris nodded, and Kubert let out a chuckle. "Figured as much. Don't worry, son, if'n you can make it through your first winter up here, you'll do just fine." He then called out to the men huddled around the stove, "Hey, make a little room for this fella, give him a chance to thaw out."

Some of the men grumbled, then one of them got up and offered Chris his stool. The young man peeled the mittens off his stiff fingers and held them out towards the cast iron, glad to feel real warmth for the first time since leaving the fort. It seemed like he'd been frozen to the core for months now, ever since he made his way into the northern territories -- winter in Alabama was nothing like this, that was for sure. There were days when it got so bad, he wished he'd never left home on this crazy quest, but the hope of finding his father kept driving him on from one cavalry fort or outpost to the next, ever deeper into the wild country. The leads he followed were slim at best: no one he talked to had heard of Echo Valley, and the name of Jim Crandall jogged very few memories. Luckily, Tom Hawkins was rather well-known...but going by what he heard, there appeared to be two people by that name running about. Father and son, ironically. Most folks seemed to agree that both made their home in this area, just a few hundred miles south of the Canadian territories, so Chris had begged and bargained with every trapper he came across, slowly making his way to Howling Forks and, he hoped, the answers he was searching for.

One of the older men sitting nearby picked up the brandy-filled coffee pot, then topped off a tin cup and passed it to Chris, saying, "'Ere ye go, that'll chase the chill away." Chris wasn't much of a drinker, but he took a sip now and then to be polite -- it left a warm trail in his throat all the way down to his gut.

Another man gave him a once-over, then said, "What business does a boy like you got up here, anyhow? You obviously ain't built to handle it."

"He said he's lookin' for Tom Hawkins and his son," MacHenry answered, taking a cup of brandy himself. "Something 'bout a man named Crandall."

"Well, you're bit late, if'n you want the elder Hawkins," Kubert said. "Old man passed on...what, eight, ten years ago?"

"Roundabout," one of the trappers said. "Good man, he was. Fair an' honest, an' one Hell of a scrapper if'n he thought the cause was right. His boy's the same way."

"Y-you know him?" Chris asked the trapper -- he'd finally thawed out enough that his teeth had stopped chattering so much. "Do you know where he is? Do you know about Echo Valley?"

"Sure do...but I can't take you there."

"Why not? I've got money. Not a lot, but whatever you want..."

"It ain't about money, son. Echo Valley's off-limits to white folks." He waved a hand westward. "It's supposed to be somewhere off thataway, past Table Mountain, but I've been up in that range at least a half-dozen times and ain't never come across it. Them Injuns got it well hid, that's all I can say."

"I hear-tell they got some sort of Injun magic over the place, to keep the white folks out," one man added. "If'n you try an' find it alone, you'll wander around up there 'til you die."

"You're pulling my leg," Chris said to them with a frown. "There's no such thing as magic."

"Maybe there is, an' maybe there ain't," Kubert said, "but either way, there ain't no one here that'll take you to Echo Valley. You're welcome to hang out here 'til somebody from the valley comes 'round, though."

"How long might that be?"

"Can't say. Those folk tend to stick close to home when winter sets in. Might not see any of 'em 'til springtime."

Chris hung his head low -- in the middle of this frozen waste, springtime seemed like a far-off dream. The young man excused himself and got up from his place at the stove, wandering off to an unoccupied spot in the trading post while the conversation turned to other things. After all the miles he'd traveled, he couldn't believe that he'd hit a wall so close to his destination. Bad enough to discover that one of the people he was searching for was long dead, but for a seasoned group of mountain men to insist that the only thing keeping him from Echo Valley was _magic_? Good Lord, this was the 19th Century! Hadn't logic and reason stamped out such superstitious notions by now? He sat down on a barrel near the back of the room, sipping his brandy and pondering the possibility of heading up into the mountains himself, their warnings be damned. He soon dismissed it as foolish: despite all the months he'd spent out on the frontier, Chris's survival skills were still rather minimal, and he most certainly didn't have the physical stamina to last more than a few hours alone in that bitter cold.

There was a sound behind him of boots scraping against the wooden floorboards. He turned and saw one of the trappers standing behind him, a rather large man in a coat made from a bear's pelt, the thick black beard on his face blending in with the fur. "You want to get to ze valley zat badly, boy?" he asked Chris in a heavy French accent.

"Maybe," Chris answered, suddenly wary. "What's it to you?"

The man grinned. "If zat is what you want, I can provide. I am very good tracker, I know zis area very well. Echo Valley...zis is no problem at all."

"If it's no problem, then why didn't you say so before?"

"For I am, how you say, keeping secret. Ze Indians, zey trust Big Pierre," he said, indicating himself, "but zey no trust everyone. So, zey tell me to keep secret. But you have need to find zem _très prompt_...very quick, no?"

"The quicker, the better. I've already wasted months just trying to get here, and the idea of just sitting around until somebody shows up..."

"Ah, but someone _has_ shown!" He thumped a hand against his massive chest. "I take you zere tomorrow, deliver you like _Père Noël_ down ze _cheminée_. _Monsieur_ Hawkins be _très_ glad to see Big Pierre, just as glad as you are now, eh?"

"More than you could know." Chris got off the barrel and shook the big man's hand, saying, "Thank you so much, this is probably the best Christmas present I've had in a long time."

Big Pierre's grin widened a little more. "Ze pleasure is all mine, _mon ami_."

* * *

They set off before dawn, while many of the other men were still sleeping off their hangovers in the surrounding buildings. Chris was rather groggy himself, but Big Pierre insisted that they'd need all the daylight they could for the journey. "It take many hours to go up into ze mountains," he explained as their horses crunched through the snow. "We do not want to be up zere at night, it get _très froid._ Besides, ze sooner we go, the sooner we get to Echo Valley, no?"

Chris certainly couldn't argue with that. So he kept his complaints to a minimum as the bitter winds cut through all the layers of clothing he'd donned, chilling him so badly that he found it hard to breathe sometimes. He could even feel his horse stiffening up a little, but the cold didn't appear to affect Big Pierre at all. In fact, he seemed to thrive in it, driving his mount forward with enthusiasm as they made their way into the foothills surrounding Table Mountain. The climb got steeper as they began to move up the mountainside proper, the path narrowing so that they had to ride single-file. "How far do we have to go yet?" Chris asked after a few hours, his eyes occasionally darting from the sheer column of rock that towered over them on the right to the equally-sheer drop off the path on their left.

"Not too far, _mon ami_. Ze plateau is coming soon, zen we shall be getting to business." Chris didn't understand what Big Pierre was referring to, but then again, the man's English was pretty fractured, so he didn't think much about it.

By noontime, they'd finally reached the broad, flat region of rock that gave Table Mountain its name. It spread out for at least a mile in a vague crescent shape, its snow-covered expanse broken up here and there by boulders and stunted trees. Chris slowed his horse to a stop and took it all in with wide eyes, his discomfort over the cold forgotten. Meanwhile, Big Pierre rode on, stopping his own mount at one of the nearby boulders. He swept his hand over it, wiping away caked-up snow, then yelled at Chris, "Boy! You come here!" The young man did as he was told, sidling up to Big Pierre, who was in the process of dismounting, and gestured to Chris to do the same. "You see zis, boy? You see ze marks?" he asked, pointing at the clear spot on the boulder. Someone had carved a series of lines and dots into the rock, some of which appeared to have colors embedded into them. A whirl of red danced around three blue specks, yellow daggers intersected with a thick white stripe...they looked random at first, but the longer Chris gazed upon them, the more the designs seemed to say _something_, but he couldn't fathom what it was. To be sure, they said something to Big Pierre. "We are close, _mon ami_," he told him. "I have found ze signs all over ze mountain range, but here zere are ze most...Echo Valley must be close to here."

"'Must be'? But I thought you said you knew..." Chris was cut off mid-sentence when Big Pierre grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him to the edge of the plateau. Beyond was nothing but jagged, foreboding spires and dark depths -- it was as uninviting a landscape as one could imagine.

"Look out zere, boy," Big Pierre said, positioning Chris close to the edge. "Do you see zem? Do you see ze valley?"

"What are you talking about? There's nothing there, just rocks."

"Look closer." Big Pierre stood behind Chris and put a hand on the young man's shoulder, his fingers digging in deep. "I know zey are down zere, laughing at me, but I cannot see zem. Zey tink zat I will just give up and go away, but no, _mon ami,_ I find ways in. Like you."

Chris suddenly felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold weather. "W-what's that supposed to mean?"

"If a boy from as far away as you knows of _Monsieur_ Hawkins and ze valley, zen he must know about you as well, no? Perhaps he is waiting zere for you right now...but he does not know zat Big Pierre is with you. Not yet." The man's other hand suddenly came into view, holding a large hunting knife. "He will not hide from me any longer, not if he wants you to live."

_Dear God, I've been following a madman_, Chris thought. He knew he had to fight somehow, but all his attention was fixed on the blade as the winter sun glinted off of it. As if from as distance, he heard Big Pierre tell him to start walking towards a small footpath that descended into the inhospitable-looking area below them, saying that they were going to walk over every inch of this mountain range until someone from Echo Valley appeared. The man didn't say what would happen if no one appeared, but he didn't have to. _I'm going to die up here_, he thought as he tried to get his legs to move. _I'm going to die, and no one will ever find my body, because they're all too superstitious to even come up here._

"Walk faster, boy!" Big Pierre smacked Chris on the back of his head. The young man stumbled on the icy ground and went down on one knee. That didn't help Big Pierre's attitude at all: he kicked Chris in the butt, yelling, "Why you stall, boy? You tink I am making joke here? Maybe I give you little cut now, so you know I am being serious." He took the tip of the knife and pressed it just below Chris's jawline, hard enough to send a few drops of hot blood trickling down the cold flesh of his neck.

That seemed to be all Chris needed to break free of his fear. He kicked out one of his legs, his bootheel colliding with Big Pierre's shin. The man grunted and tried to press the knife even further into Chris's neck, but the young man had thrown himself to the side, kicking out once more, only this time he aimed at the trapper's ample gut. As he staggered back, Chris got to his feet and ran over to where they'd left the horses, but Big Pierre was soon right after him, grabbing him by the back of his coat just as he managed to reach them. Chris latched on to one of the saddlebags, refusing to let go as the man pulled at him and slashed through layer after layer of clothing with his knife. Finally, the straps on the saddlebag gave way and Chris went flying back, various supplies falling to the ground with him. He lay on his back for a moment, stunned, then he saw Big Pierre standing over him, the knife already beginning to come down. In a panic, Chris took hold of a small camp shovel that had fallen from the saddlebag and swung it up at the trapper -- luckily for him, he managed to smack the knife from Big Pierre's hand, breaking the man's wrist in the process. A string of what Chris assumed were French profanities poured out of the trapper's mouth as he held the broken appendage to his chest. Chris sprung to his feet and took a few more swings at the man's head before Big Pierre fell over in the snow and lay still.

The young man dropped the shovel and stood there, his whole body shaking -- he hadn't wanted to kill the trapper, crazy as he may have been, but it looked to Chris like he'd done exactly that. _It doesn't matter now_, he told himself, _you did what you had to do. Now, get on that horse and find a way off this mountain before you freeze to death._ He slowly turned back towards the horses, shivering as the wind whipped through the tears in his coat -- judging by the sting on his back, it felt like the knife had cut more than clothing a few times. _You'll be fine, don't worry about it_, he thought as he tried to climb into the saddle...then let out a cry as Big Pierre grabbed him by the ankle and yanked him to the ground.

He found himself pinned down by the sheer bulk of the larger man, whose face hovered inches above his own as a pair of massive hands worked their way around his throat. "_Je vous tuerai...vous tuerai..._" the trapper spat out, blood dripping down from the gash in his head caused by the shovel. "_Petite merde..._"

Big Pierre's ramblings were soon drowned out by the heavy pounding of Chris's own blood in his ears as he struggled to draw breath. He tore at the man's arms with numb fingers, knowing that the action was futile -- his vision was already growing black from lack of oxygen. _Stupid_, the young man thought as consciousness began to leave him. _What a stupid way to die._

By the time the gunshot rang out, Chris was too far gone to hear it.

* * *

The world was dark. Dark and cold. Chris didn't know how long he'd been there, but it seemed like forever. How had he gotten here? He thought he remembered another place, far away, where he'd been safe and warm and loved, but it was gone now. Everything was gone. Now it was only darkness.

He felt a warm breeze blow across his face. Such a strange sensation after being so cold for so long. Where had it come from? He turned his head, searching the dark, and saw a faint light in the distance, outlining the silhouette of a figure. It beckoned to him, and he reached out for it, not knowing who or what the figure was. As he did so, the light grew brighter, until the darkness evaporated and Chris found himself standing on an open plain. He could still feel the breeze blowing, stronger now, seeming to swirl around his body, and sometimes right through him, tingling as it did so. It didn't touch the tall grass surrounding him, though, nor did it stir the clouds in the vast blue sky above. He thought it odd for the wind to behave in such a manner, but it didn't frighten him. In fact, he rather enjoyed it, and laughed aloud as he stretched his arms out and let the tingling sensation envelop him, his hair blowing about in the breeze.

Then Chris saw the figure once more, standing at the top of the small hill before him. It was a man with sandy brown hair, dressed in the same rough attire as many of the trappers he'd seen on his travels. The sight of the man on the hill stirred something deep inside Chris, and all at once, it came back to him: the diary, the long journey, the fight on the mountaintop...and he suddenly knew who the man was.

"You're my father," Chris whispered, and the wind carried his words up the hill to the man, who smiled down at him. He then turned away from Chris and made his way down the far side of the hill. "Wait! Don't go!" The young man started after him, running over the hill with surprising speed, but he couldn't seem to catch up. _Then I'll run faster_, he thought, and pumped his legs even harder, the wind now screaming in his ears. It still wasn't enough, his father was still too far ahead, even though the man was only walking. "Why won't you wait for me?" Chris called out, but he was moving so fast now, the words were torn apart as they left his mouth. His father soon approached the crest of another hill, and Chris feared that, if the man reached the other side, he'd never see him again, so he poured on even more speed, until even the birds in the sky appeared to stand still.

Then his father abruptly stopped walking. Chris tried to slow down, but was no use: he flew past the man and headed straight over the other side of the hill. Just as he passed by, Chris saw the briefest glimpse of Jim Crandall's face -- he could see so much of his own face reflected in those features, but he was going far too fast to really take it all in. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling down the hill, out of control, his body pummeled against the ground until all the momentum he'd built up was finally spent. He lay sprawled out on the ground for a time, then the smell of greasy smoke reached his nostrils. Dazed, he picked up his head to have a look around, and what he saw made him blanch.

Before him were three white men, stripped to the waist and hung upside-down from long poles. They appeared to have been soldiers, judging by what was left of their clothes. Strange markings were carved into their pale skin, similar to the ones Chris had seen on the boulder, but these had an air of the sinister about them that the others didn't possess. Their bellies had also been flayed open and the contents pulled out -- Chris could see all the organs carefully arranged on the ground at the base of each pole. He clapped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit as he climbed to his feet. _Who would do such a thing?_ he wondered, then saw an even more grisly sight beyond: the smoldering remains of an Indian encampment, dead bodies of natives strewn everywhere. Chris staggered forward on numb legs, hoping to find at least one person still alive in this nightmare, but no one had been spared, not even the children. It was a senseless act of destruction, no meaning behind it whatsoever that he could see. He stopped before one of the tipis, staring at a design painted in red on the stitched hide: a simple zigzagging line, like a child's rendering of a lightning bolt turned sideways. Why did it hold his attention so? Why had such a horrible thing happened to these people? Why had his father led him here to witness this? _WHY?_

Something screeched in the air above him. He whirled around in time to see a large owl descending upon him with its talons extended. Chris staggered backwards into the tipi as the bird swooped down, tearing out his throat before he even had a chance to scream and...

He woke up, shaking and panting in terror over his vivid dream. It took a moment for Chris to realize that it had indeed been a dream, and once he'd reassured himself that no harm had befallen him, he was greeted with the new puzzlement over where he was. From what he could make out in the dim light of a nearby fire, he was laying inside a large tipi, numerous blankets and hides piled upon him for warmth. He thought he could hear someone humming, and when he propped himself up on one elbow, he saw a little Indian boy sitting on the other side of the fire, playing with some small wooden horses and men. After a moment, Chris recognized the tune the boy was humming: "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." _Where in the world did an Indian learn a Christmas carol?_ he thought.

The boy soon looked up and, seeing that Chris was watching him, smiled and waved hello. Chris responded in kind, and the boy put aside his toys and got to his feet, walking over to the flap in the side of the tipi. "Wait," Chris started to say, but his throat hurt so badly, that was the only word he could get out. The boy didn't seem to notice as he exited the tipi, and Chris soon heard what he assumed was the boy calling out to someone once the flap fell shut again. _I hope whoever he's talking to can speak English_, he thought as he tried to get up -- his legs were stiff, and his back ached as much as his throat, but he felt well enough to stand. He was clad only in his trousers, and he pulled one of the blankets tight around his shoulders as he walked over to the flap himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an old flintlock rifle propped against one of the tipi's support poles, with a powder horn and coonskin cap hanging from a peg above it -- Chris wondered if a weapon as old as that could even fire.

Bright sunlight greeted him as he poked his head outside. A cool breeze was blowing, making him wish he'd looked around for his shirt before stepping out. His discomfort was soon forgotten, though, as he took in the world around him. The tipi was situated not far from a large, sparkling lake, partly covered by ice. He could see other tipis standing at regular intervals all around the lake, as well as Indians moving about between them. Above it all stood Table Mountain, flanked on either side by its smaller brethren, which ringed the entire area. Chris stared hard at the mountaintop, amazed at how clearly he could pick out the boulders atop it even at this distance. It then occurred to him that he must now be standing in the same area he'd been looking down upon with Big Pierre...but he had not seen any lake from that high vantage point, and he'd certainly not seen any Indian encampment. As a matter of fact, he couldn't see any of the foreboding features down here that had been so evident from that plateau.

Before he could come up with a reasonable explanation, he saw two men approaching him. The first was dressed in dark clothes with a fringed buckskin jacket, and his dark hair had a pale blond streak running back from the crown of his head. The second, who appeared younger and was carrying the little boy on his hip, was dressed in more traditional Indian garb, but the similarity in their facial features marked them as related, to be sure. "Good morning! Glad to see you're finally awake," the first man called out with a smile. "Thought for sure you were gonna sleep on through 'til New Year's."

"How...how long..." Chris managed to get out.

"'Bout two days. It was pretty touchy the first night, but after that, Uncle Wise Owl said you should pull though just fine." The first man extended his hand, saying, "By the way, I'm Tom Hawkins, but most folks just call me Hawk. And this fella toting the papoose is my brother Small Eagle...but if'n you want to tick him off, call him Edward." The second man muttered something and punched Hawk in the arm with his free hand.

"You're..." Even if his throat didn't ache so much, Chris wasn't sure he could have spoken: there were so many things he wanted to say all at once that the words in his head became jumbled together. Instead, he shook the man's hand numbly, staring at him like he'd never seen another human being before. After a few seconds, he realized that Hawk had said something else to him, but it hadn't registered. "What...what was that?" he croaked.

"Your name, son. I asked what your name was."

His name? What _was_ his name? He gave his head a quick shake to clear it, then said, "I'm Chris Maxwell, I..." He stopped and rubbed his throat -- he wanted to continue, but it hurt too much to speak more than a few words at a time.

"Better take it slow," Small Eagle told him. "Big Pierre came close to crushing your windpipe. If'n we'd been a few seconds later getting within shooting range, you'd probably be dead."

"Have to talk," Chris replied, struggling with each word. "Come so far...need..." He punched his fist on his thigh in frustration -- he'd finally found someone who could give him the answers he needed, and he could barely make a sound! He locked his eyes on Hawk's, then said slowly, "Jim Crandall...need to find him. _Please_."

"Jim Crandall? I haven't heard that name since..." Hawk paused, then asked quietly, "You said your name was Maxwell?" Chris nodded, and the man glanced over at Small Eagle with a sigh. "Reckon you should send your boy off to play with the others," he told his brother.

Small Eagle agreed, setting the little boy down and speaking with him for a moment. The boy pulled on the leg of his father's breeches, obviously not wanting to leave, but Small Eagle gave him a swat on the butt and sent him on his way. He then gestured for the three of them to go back inside the tipi. "It's funny," he said to Chris as they settled cross-legged around the fire, "when I first saw you, I thought you looked familiar. You get the same feeling, Hawk?"

"That I did. Couldn't pin it down, but now that I know, it's real obvious." Hawk cocked an eyebrow, saying, "I take it you _are _Crandall's kid, am I right?"

Chris didn't have to answer, the look of relief on his face did all the talking.

"I can't believe it, you showing up like this after all these years," Small Eagle said as he propped his chin up on his hand. "I couldn't have been much older than ten when Crandall first came to the valley. I remember Dad and Hawk had gone down to the post on a supply trip, and I guess they'd saved him from getting his neck wrung by some trapper..."

"Ray Fredricks, that was the man," Hawk added. "He thought Crandall had been poaching from his traps, and since Crandall was new out here, nobody'd believe him when he said he was innocent. 'Cept Dad: he could always tell an honest man from a fake. Said he could feel it in his bones. So he took Crandall under his wing and carted him up here." Hawk paused, laughing. "I still remember the look on his face when we walked him into the valley: his eyes looked like they were gonna pop outta his head!"

Chris found himself laughing a little as well. It was a strange comfort to know that his father had run into similar difficulties during his first days on the frontier. That brought to mind something else, and he asked haltingly, "Big Pierre...why was he...mad at you?"

"Big Pierre was a loon," Hawk replied -- he was no longer laughing. "I ran into him years ago while I was traveling. He'd been playing 'guide' for unsuspecting folks traveling west and robbing them blind, just making off with their supplies in the middle of the night and stranding them in the wilderness. He had a gift for talking folks into believing anything, as you undoubtedly found out. I thought getting him sent to jail was enough, but I reckon he sweet-talked his way outta that too." He ran a hand through the blond streak in his hair. "Still trying to figure out where he heard 'bout Echo Valley -- we'd been watching him walk around the mountains for a couple months now, but since there was no way he could get in, we just ignored him. Never imagined he'd drag somebody else up here as a hostage."

Chris blinked. "You...watched him? For months? But how come he never found this place? And why couldn't I suh...couldn't s-see..." He started coughing and gasping for breath -- he'd pushed his injured throat too far, and now he was paying for it. Hawk got up and fetched a canteen from a corner of the tipi, and Chris gulped down the water in between coughs.

"I want you to sit quiet for a bit, son," Hawk said, putting a hand on Chris's shoulder. "Just sit quiet and listen while I tell you a story. A long time ago, long before Columbus got lost and ran his boat into America, there was an Indian by the name of Strong Bow. He was a warrior without a tribe -- some say his people had been wiped out by another tribe, but nobody knows for sure. What they do know is that he'd turned his back on his warrior ways in favor of peace, and walked the length and breadth of the land trying to spread that peace to every warring tribe that he could. Not everyone heard him proper, of course, but there were some that did, and they followed him as he walked, until one day there were so many folk following him that it was like he'd made his own tribe.

"Now Strong Bow, he didn't know what to do 'bout this, so he went off on his lonesome into a cave to pray to the spirits for guidance. He was only gone for a day, but they say when he got back, his black hair was starting to go a mite gray in places. He told the folk following him that the spirits had shown him a new tribe that was coming to this land...a white tribe that'd chew up everything in its path. But the spirits had also shown him a place where they could all live in peace and harmony while the white tribe washed over the rest of the land. And so he led them here, to Echo Valley, and he and a group of shamans laid their magic over every rock and tree and blade of grass and drop of water in this place, so that no person who wasn't of the valley could ever find it." Hawk pulled back from him and smirked. "And that's they way it's been 'round here ever since, and it don't matter whether you're a big, dumb, lying Frenchman or a skinny little greenhorn from Alabama: if'n the people of Echo Valley don't want you to see 'em, you ain't never gonna see 'em."

Though he didn't say anything, both men could read the look on Chris's face well enough to know what was on his mind. "I don't think he believes a word of it, big brother," Small Eagle said.

Hawk shrugged, saying, "Well, Crandall didn't believe it straight off neither, remember? Kept asking Dad what the trick was. But he got the hang of it after a bit, and I reckon that Maxwell here will get it before long, too."

Chris took another swallow of water before trying to talk again. "Never mind...the story. Where's Crandall now? Where's my father?"

Hawk sighed and glanced over at his brother like he'd done earlier. "I'm sorry to tell you this, son, but...Jim Crandall's dead, 'bout sixteen years now. We was visiting a little shanty town out on the trail when a fight broke out between some fellas. Crandall got caught up in it by accident and got a knife in his ribs. He didn't suffer none, believe me, and the fella that done it paid the price." He looked almost sick as he said the words. "I didn't want to just tell you outright like this, but I can't think of any better way to tell you, not with you being so eager to know where he is." He paused, then said, "I remember Dad wrote a letter to Christine Maxwell, your mother, not long after Crandall passed away -- seemed proper, considering how many other letters he'd helped your father write -- but I guess that she never got it."

"She couldn't...she died when I was born," Chris answered tonelessly. There was also the fact that his grandparents had moved him to Manchester by then, so any letters sent to their old place in Hancock would go unnoticed, but Chris wasn't in the proper frame of mind to explain that particular wrinkle. Instead, he told them, "Never knew...about Jim Crandall until...few months ago."

"This explains a lot," Small Eagle said, shaking his head. "All those letters Crandall sent, and he never got an answer...I remember it used to tear him up."

Hawk said to Chris, "He wanted you and your mother to come out live here, did you know that?" The young man nodded, and Hawk continued, "Once Dad found out about the whole situation, he promised that y'all would have a home right here in Echo Valley for as long as you folks needed one. He even tried to talk Crandall into traveling back to Alabama to get you and your mother instead of just writing letters, but I think Crandall was afraid of being turned away. Reckon he thought letters were safer, even if they were unanswered."

Chris was only half-listening: his mind had drifted back to the image of his father from his dream, only now there was such sadness in his face. _He didn't abandon me_, Chris thought, _but he didn't have the courage to come claim me, either._ He thought of how different his life would have been if Crandall _had_ shown up and taken him back here, but such fantasies mattered little to the reality he'd experienced. He'd grown up in the white man's world, not the wilderness, and wishing for that fact to change certainly wouldn't make it happen.

Then Hawk said something that cut through Chris's ruminations: "That offer still stands, by the way." Chris looked up, confused, and asked Hawk what he meant. "The offer to stay here in Echo Valley, for however long you wish," the man explained. "I don't know what sort of situation you've got going on back in Alabama, but I reckon that if'n you're willing to travel this far on the slim chance of stumbling across your father...well, something tells me that you might not be itching to go back just yet."

_That's putting it mildly_, Chris thought. Even now, he could imagine Elias laughing at him all the way back in Manchester, mocking the young man for wasting all those months on a futile quest. The longer he could avoid that situation in real life, the happier he'd be. But what sort of life could he make for himself out here? Again, he hadn't grown up in the wilderness, and it showed -- there was no need for a young man with a head full of nothing but book-learnin' out here. "I'm not...I don't know...what to do," Chris finally answered. "I need to...to think about it for a while."

"Well, nobody's asking you to make a decision right this second, son. You're still looking pretty rough around the edges, anyhow. Maybe after a few days of bed rest and hot food, your head will be in better shape to think 'bout things like that." Hawk got up, his brother following suit. "In the meantime, you should just take it easy. If'n you want anything, just stick your head outside and holler...but not too loud. What little talking you've done so far probably ain't good for your voice box."

Chris nodded assent, and watched the two men as they left the tipi, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Part of him felt the way he did when he first discovered the truth about his "sister": just a jumble of conflicting emotions inside, all smashing into each other and making him feel sick. He wanted to cry, to curse, to curl up in a ball and pretend that none of this had happened...but then there was the part of him that felt relief. The searching was over. He didn't get the ending he'd wanted, but at least he'd gotten an answer of some sort. _I just wish I could've met him, just once_, he thought, and the dream he'd had came to mind once more: his father, standing on a hill, smiling down at him. But it was only a dream, an image cobbled together from nothing in his oxygen-starved brain, not his actual father -- what Jim Crandall actually looked like would always be a mystery to him. _But at least I can get to know him a little though his friends. Hawk and Small Eagle, they seem like good people...though I'm definitely not buying into this "magic" nonsense like all those folks down in Howling Forks are._ Chris laid back down on the layer of hides beneath him, saying to himself, _That's one thing I have that can be of use out here: a rational outlook on things. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation as to why Echo Valley can't be seen from the plateau...and it most definitely doesn't involve magic spells and Indian shamans._

* * *

He saw them coming up the rise. He was sitting cross-legged before the small tipi that had been the traditional dwelling of Echo Valley's resident shaman for countless generations. From there, one could see the entire encampment, as well as all the people who owed their peaceful existence to the power that had been passed down to him by his predecessor, Star Falling At Dawn. He did not possess it personally -- it had been bound into the very earth of Echo Valley long ago -- but he could tap into it to a degree and use it to serve his people when they needed it. He'd tried many times to extract some of that power permanently, but so far, he'd been unsuccessful...so he'd begun exploring other avenues.

The two men that approached him now knew nothing of this, nor did he wish them to. In his eyes, they were the reason why he needed an alternate source of power. The others in the valley didn't look upon them the way he did, however: they thought of the two men as great leaders, and bestowed upon them many names as a way of honoring them. Hawk and Small Eagle. The Sons of Tomahawk. The Wanderer and the Quiet Dreamer. The Harbingers of Unity. Some of their people even addressed them by their white names, Thomas and Edward. They were unaware that he had also given them a name, one that he kept hidden deep inside himself:

The Half-Breeds.

"Uncle Wise Owl!" Hawk called out to him in the language of the valley, a blending of the various tongues spoken by their ancestors in the days before Strong Bow gathered them together. "Good news: the stranger has finally awoke...though he is not so much a stranger as we had believed."

Wise Owl's eyes flicked up to his nephew. "How is this so?"

"He is the son of Jim Crandall, who passed beyond this world many years ago. Do you remember him?"

"I do indeed, for I was the one who placed the blessings of the valley upon him." He tried to keep the agitation out of his voice. "That is something not easily forgotten."

"Forgive me, Uncle, for my own forgetfulness," Hawk replied. "I must admit, I am still surprised over the discovery of the young man's identity. It is sad that neither his father nor mine lived to see this day."

"Nevertheless," Small Eagle added, "there is the joy that the promise our father made shall be fulfilled. Even if Chris Maxwell does choose to return to the whites, I believe we should at least give him the blessing, should he one day decide to return."

Wise Owl's spine stiffened at the words. "Are you sure of this? That is not something to be given to everyone, especially to a white who you have just met."

"But it had been promised to him long ago," Hawk said, "and now that my brother and I lead this tribe, the responsibility of fulfilling that promise falls to us. We cannot give him his father, which is what he truly desires, but we can give him the same privilege that was granted to his father."

He regarded to the two men, then said, "Very well. When you wish it, I shall perform the blessing upon the son of Jim Crandall."

"We thank you, Wise Owl, for your understanding." The brothers gave him a nod of respect, which he returned, though there was no respect behind his gesture. As they began to make their way back down to the main encampment, Wise Owl silently cursed both them and the young white man they'd brought into their midst. When Hawk had carried Chris Maxwell's unconscious form into camp two days earlier, he'd of course expected Wise Owl to do everything he could to save the young man's miserable life. In reality, he'd done nothing, though he'd acted as if he were performing serious ministrations whenever someone was watching him -- the most help he'd actually given was to bandage the wounds on Chris's back. Despite what he'd told his nephews, Wise Owl had thought for sure that the young man would choke to death in his sleep, but that obviously wasn't the case...and now to discover that he was Jim Crandall's _son_! He'd hoped that, once Crandall had died, the threat of more whites living in the valley was over, but it looked like it had just been delayed. The Half-Breeds seemed determined to continue the destruction of their people that had started with Tomahawk, and unless Wise Owl found a way to supplement his powers, he feared that they would succeed.

He let his eyes slip closed and began to chant, feeling the magic of Echo Valley ebb and flow though his old bones. He tried to direct it at Chris Maxwell, to strike him dead before he could cause any more harm, but as always, the power refused to behave in such a malicious way. _Then I shall have to find a power that will, and soon_, he thought, _before the curse of the white tribe destroys us forever._


	2. Revelations

**INHERIT THE WIND**

**Part 2: Revelations**

_**1838:**_

He didn't know where to begin. So much had happened to him since he'd left home...how in the world could he sum it all up on a few paltry sheets of paper? He started to lay down a few words, hesitated, laid down a few more, then crumpled the sheet up in frustration and threw it as far as he could. _I can't do this_, Chris Maxwell thought. _I know I should, but dammit, I can't even figure out what to call them!_

He got up and stretched his legs -- he'd been sitting cross-legged in front of Hawk's tipi for almost an hour, forcing himself to try and start a letter to his grandparents back in Manchester. Obviously, it wasn't going to happen, at least not today. Chris knew he should at least let them know he was alive, but beyond that...what? What did he have to say to them? He wasn't as angry with them as he'd been all those months ago, when he'd stumbled across the truth, but there was still a discomfort there, this feeling that Elias would never be happy with him unless he toed the line and played the good son. Chris shook his head, thinking, _But I'm not his son, I never was. It was all just part of this big damn lie, and I don't know if I can forgive him for that._

Then there was the matter of trying to explain Echo Valley. He'd been living there for over four months now, and Chris still couldn't find the words to describe it properly -- "A virtual Eden", his father had called it when he wrote to his mother long ago, but even that seemed an understatement some days. Though Chris had first come to the valley in the midst of winter, the place had a lushness to it even then, a pulse of life that went beyond the people living there and seemed to be present in the very soil. Hawk said it was because of the magic his ancestors placed over it, but Chris still refused to believe in that nonsense. He did his best to be tolerant of the notion, however: he was a guest here, after all, and wasn't about to ridicule these people for their beliefs.

There were a few odd things about this place that he couldn't reasonably explain away, though, like what they called "the blessings of the valley". When Chris was well enough, Hawk and Small Eagle showed him around the area, which included taking him past the supposed "border" where the magic stopped -- when they told Chris to turn around, Echo Valley was gone, and he saw only the jagged, foreboding rocks that he'd seen when he first arrived with Big Pierre. He immediately dismissed it as some trick of the eye...but when he went to say so to Hawk and Small Eagle, he saw that they were gone as well. He spent the next couple hours wandering about the mountainside, completely unable to find his way back to the valley, then the two men suddenly showed up once more and led Chris back, easy as you please. The next day, the whole tribe gathered to witness the ceremony that would allow Chris to "see" the valley just as well as them. Again, Chris tolerated their beliefs, letting their shaman Wise Owl paint designs on his face and chant over him as he knelt on the ground, but when it was over and they took him to the same spot as before, Chris really _did_ see the valley now, clear as day. He tried to chalk it up as some form of hypnosis, but that didn't explain why he couldn't see Echo Valley in the first place. "Because you weren't supposed to," was all Hawk would say whenever Chris pressed him about it. "You were a stranger, and a white man at that, so..." Hawk would then smile and shrug, as if that said it all.

Chris had come to expect those sort of conversations with Hawk: while the man was intelligent and rather well-read for someone raised in the wilderness (as was his brother), he had a casual attitude when it came to certain facts. Whenever Chris disagreed with something Hawk had said, the older man would hear him out, nod, and simply say, "Different minds, different thoughts." No argument, no forcing Chris to see things from his point of view, just a nod and acceptance that the young man had an opinion that differed from his own. It was a drastic change from the atmosphere Chris had grown up in, and it took some time to adjust. The two of them never stopped talking, though, often going for long walks through the valley as they did so. Hawk would usually slip in a lesson of some sort on those walks as well, showing Chris how to read a trail or the proper way to set a snare -- again, it was all done in that casual way Hawk had, not forcing the lesson, just letting it happen as the opportunity to teach arose. And he'd taught Chris a lot as a result: while he wasn't sure if he could handle being completely alone out in the wild yet, he certainly had more experience now than when he'd first stumbled into Howling Forks.

The sound of laughter nearby broke Chris out of his ruminations. Small Eagle's children were running about the outside of their family's tipi, which was set up not far from Hawk's, giggling and shrieking as Small Eagle's eldest boy chased his little sister around with a fat bullfrog in his hands, doing his level best to drop it down the back of her deerskin dress. Around the fourth or fifth lap, Small Eagle himself came out of the tipi to see what all the commotion was about. Upon witnessing the deadly peril his little girl was in, he scooped her up in his arms and held her as high as he could, smiling up at her. The girl smiled down, spreading her arms as if to fly away and laughing. As Chris watched, he recalled his grandfather playing with him like that when he was about their age...then he pushed the memory away as that taint of the lie crept over it. Nothing about his life looked the same anymore because of that, not even pleasant memories.

Small Eagle caught sight of the young man standing there watching them and called out, "Is something wrong there, Chris?"

"No, just thinking." Then to further obscure the trail, he asked, "Has anybody seen Hawk yet?"

"Not that I've heard. Don't worry, this is perfectly normal behavior for him."

"If you say so." Three days before, Hawk had told Chris that he was going off to have a think by himself for a while. Chris figured that the man would be back in a few hours, and when Hawk didn't show, Small Eagle and his family had to talk Chris out of searching for him. "How do you know he didn't get hurt or something?" he asked Small Eagle now as the man played with his children.

"I just know, that's all," he replied. "Same as I know when the rains are coming, or if a hunt will go well. It's just...there." He tapped a finger against his temple. "It's never steered me wrong before."

Chris tried not to scoff. He'd heard about Small Eagle's supposed clairvoyance before, and he didn't believe in it anymore now than he had four months ago. Both of the brothers claimed that their grandfather, Grey Elk, had a touch of it as well, and had predicted many things, including the arrival of their father in Echo Valley, which was a fairly odd tale in itself. But just like their claims about the valley being magic, Chris didn't put any stock in them -- try as he might, he couldn't reconcile all these superstitious notions with nearly two decades of rational, civilized living. "If he's not back by tomorrow, will you humor me and go looking for him?" the young man asked.

"Sure thing...but it won't come to that," Small Eagle answered as he placed his daughter on his shoulders. "In the meantime, try to finish that letter, okay?"

"How did you know I..." he started to say, then glanced back towards Hawk's tipi -- the paper and jar of ink were still sitting in plain view. Nothing magic there, just common sense. "Sure, I'll try."

Small Eagle gave him a nod, then took his little boy by the hand and started to walk towards the lake, leaving Chris alone once more. The young man resumed his place in front of the tipi, picked up a fresh sheet of paper, and stared at it for nearly a half-hour before giving the task up for good that day.

* * *

Hawk finally showed up again that night. Chris had been sound asleep inside the tipi when the man came in and shook him awake -- once he'd achieved a state of semi-consciousness, Chris sat up and glared at him, saying, "Where have you been? I was beginning to think you were dead!"

"Far from it," Hawk replied. "I just needed some time to think 'bout a few things, and I find it easier to do such when I'm by myself." He settled back on his haunches and regarded Chris. "Spent a lot of time thinking about you, actually."

"I'm flattered, but please don't run off like that again, okay?"

The older man nodded, but it seemed an absent-minded gesture, then he said, "I'm thinking it's about time I head out on the trail again. Not a little jaunt like I just did, mind you, I mean a long haul. Visit some of the other tribes out there, make sure the whites nearby are behaving properly." He grinned. "You've gotta keep an eye on them white folks. They'll think that they own the world if'n you don't remind 'em every once in a while that there's other people out there."

"When do you think you'll be back?"

"Don't know. Usually, I spend 'bout four months or so traveling, then come on back for a spell. Depends on how long the mood to wander strikes me. One time, I stayed gone for close to two years...met a lot of nice folk in that time."

Chris yawned and started to stretch back out again. "Well, I hope you don't stay away for _that_ long. I'm having a hard enough time trying to figure out what to do with myself around here."

"Actually, I was figuring on you heading out with me, maybe try your hand at trapping or some such, something that'll help you support yourself if'n you're gonna stay out here in the wilderness."

That woke him up the rest of the way. "You really think I'm ready for that?"

"You're at least ready to give it a shot. You've still got a little more to learn, but I can only teach you so far...sooner or later, you've gotta start doing, son."

The man did have a point: what good would all these lessons from Hawk do him if he never put them to use? It seemed fitting, Chris supposed, that he at least try and take up the sort of tasks that his father had performed during his time out west. "Was my father any good at it? Trapping and tracking and all that?"

"He wasn't bad. If'n he hadn't died, I reckon he would've gotten a lot better." Hawk patted him on the shoulder and said, "You think on it for a day or two...and don't feel that you _have_ to do it just 'cause your father did. Everybody's got to be their own man." He moved over to the other side of the tipi and stretched out on the bed of hides laying there, not even bothering to take off his mud-caked boots.

Chris stretched back out himself, tucking his hands behind his head and staring up at the smoke-hole in the top of the tipi -- he could see a few stars sparkling in the small patch of sky beyond. Despite all the months he'd spent away from home, despite all the conversations with Hawk, he was still undecided about what to do with his life. Should he be a man of the wilderness, living by his wits and what the land provided, or should he return to the civilized life that he'd known for so long, if for no other reason than it was what he was accustomed to?

By noontime the next day, Chris had decided to hit the trail with Hawk...and judging by the simple nod the man gave when he told him, Chris got the impression that Hawk knew what the answer would be before Chris himself did.

* * *

They departed a week later, amid well-wishes from nearly everyone in the tribe, some going so far as to bestow upon Chris a few gifts, simple things that might come in handy out in the wilderness. Even Small Eagle's wife, Laughing River, gave him something to help him remember his time in the valley: an image of a bird intricately carved from a small, polished black stone with a rawhide thong attached. "It is a thunderbird," she explained as she looped it around Chris's neck, "a rare and sacred animal. It acts as a messenger for the Great Spirit, and to be in its favor can bring one good luck." He smiled and thanked her, finding himself genuinely touched -- though he didn't share their beliefs, he did admire the skill it took to make such a charm.

Only one member of the tribe seemed indifferent to them leaving: Wise Owl, who stood silently by with a stony look on his face as they mounted up. Chris remarked on this as they made their way on the winding path up the side of Table Mountain, and Hawk merely shrugged and said, "Uncle Wise Owl's always been like that, always serious about everything. Mom used to say that he was no fun to grow up with."

"I'll bet he wasn't." To be honest, Chris was glad to get away from Wise Owl for a while. Something about the shaman unnerved him from the first time he'd met the man, and Chris always felt uncomfortable whenever he was around. Perhaps it was his imagination, but during his entire time in the valley, he had the nagging sensation that the man was constantly watching him, as if Wise Owl was truly living up to his moniker and Chris was nothing more than a field mouse.

After a stop in Howling Forks for more supplies, the duo headed southeast, traveling at a leisurely pace across the open landscape. There were very few people living that far out in the wilderness, but Hawk seemed to know just where all those pockets of humanity dwelled. As they moved from one place to the next, spending time with a small tribe of Indians that was still trying to live as their ancestors did or looking in on some adventurous white family that had settled far from the usual trails, Chris began to see a different side of Hawk: the man acted as a sort of diplomat for these people, bridging the gap between the white world and the red, making sure that they coexisted as peacefully as possible. Now he understood why the name of Tom Hawkins was so well-known, despite how isolated the man's own people were.

In between those goodwill visits, Hawk would put Chris through the paces of true wilderness living. The young man would have to provide both food and shelter for the two of them without one shred of help, and there were nights when they'd end up eating nothing but dry jerky because Chris had missed a shot or failed to set up a trap proper. As always, Hawk never lectured, and he would only offer advice when Chris asked for it. "Even if you fail, you're still learning," Hawk pointed out one night as Chris cooked a rabbit over their campfire. "Trust me, you're doing pretty good for a greenhorn."

"If you say so." He turned the stick the rabbit was skewered on over the fire -- it was a skinny little thing, barely enough for the two of them. "I suppose if I was doing really horrible, you would've stepped in by now."

"I don't know, I kind of like this arrangement: you doing all the work and me reaping all the benefits...small as they may be." Hawk gestured to the rabbit with a smile, then said, "But I reckon the big issue here is what _you_ think of all this. We've only been out on the trail for a couple months...would you be able to handle doing this all the time? Possibly on your own?"

"Maybe...but I think we should wait until I've bagged a decent meal before you turn me loose."

Not long after, they stopped to visit with a tribe of Blackfoot that lived not far from Fort Collins. While the government had displaced many tribes as the United States expanded westward, this particular band had managed to strike up a deal with the commander of the nearby fort, and had so far been left in peace. Unfortunately, things were becoming rather tense as of late, due to more whites settling in the area. Rumors were spreading that the soldiers could show up any day and round up the whole tribe, forcing them to march off to some distant location that held no appeal for the whites yet.

When the two of them showed up in camp, the tribe's chief immediately approached Hawk and asked for his help in the matter. "Jesus, I knew this would happen eventually," he muttered after he was told about the situation, then he turned to Chris. "This is probably gonna take a while to sort out, son. You just keep yourself outta trouble 'til I'm done, okay?" Before Chris could even answer, Hawk started to walk off towards a large tipi along with the chief and a few other Blackfoot.

Chris looked at the other Indians standing nearby. Many had the same expression that he'd seen when they'd stopped to visit with other tribes along the trail: that look of instant distrust, simply because he was white. He couldn't recall anyone in Echo Valley ever giving him that look, but then again, they hadn't experienced the hardships that the rest of their people had. Chris smiled and did his best to look friendly, but it didn't appear to sway them. _Just don't do anything to upset them and you'll be fine_, he thought. _They know you came with Hawk, and they respect him...hopefully, that'll be enough._

As he waited for Hawk to finish his business, Chris wandered about the camp. He couldn't figure out why, but something about the place seemed familiar. It resembled many of the other Indian encampments they'd visited over the past few months, so he attributed the feeling of _deja vu_ to that...until he caught sight of a lone tipi on the east side of the camp with a simple zigzagging line, like a child's rendering of a lightning bolt turned sideways, painted in red on the stitched hide. Suddenly, the feeling of familiarity turned into a cold lump of fear in his gut. "This is impossible," he said under his breath as he approached the tipi, his hand reaching out to touch the design -- everything about it was identical to the one he'd seen in his dream many months ago, he was sure of it. "But that _was_ a dream, that's all it was. This can't be the same..." He shook his head, as if trying to wake up. "It's just a weird coincidence, that's all. This is probably some very common Indian symbol that you caught sight of somewhere else and your brain later jumbled into your dream _and_ _it doesn't mean a damn thing_!"

Chris heard a chuckle behind him, and he let out a yelp. He turned around to see a very old Indian standing there, clad only in deerskin breeches and his long, snowy-white hair blowing in the breeze. He regarded Chris for a moment, then looked at the design on the tipi, which Chris still had a hand laid upon. "Oh...sorry, I'm sorry," Chris stammered, and pulled his hand away. "I was just...I'm not sure what I was doing, I..."

The Indian gently took hold of the young man's hand, then placed it back on the design, his own winkled tan hand laying on top of Chris's smooth pale one. An eerie silence passed, then the Indian said in a wavering voice, "_Ahwehota._"

"I'm sorry, I don't speak your language," Chris said. "I know a few words, but..."

"They spoke to you," the old man said in English, the words coming out slowly. "They wore your father's face...so you would listen." He reached up with his other hand and touched the thunderbird charm hanging around Chris's neck. "When they first spoke to me, they took this form...but I have seen many others since then."

"What are you talking about? Who's 'they'?"

The Indian gestured around them, saying, "The spirits...of wind, of lightning, of thunder. They led you from your home so you could receive the gift...like I did."

"I don't believe in spirits," Chris told him flatly as he pulled his hand away. "Nobody led me anywhere, I came out west of my own volition."

The Indian smiled. "If this is so, then tell me...what set fire to your barn?"

"How did...what..._who told you about that_?" Chris glared at the old man. "Did Hawk tell you? Is he playing some stupid joke on me?"

"I did not speak with the Son of Tomahawk...but I know who you are, Christopher Maxwell. I know you think that you have no past, no future...because of one lie. I also know the spirits sent you a vision. A great evil is coming, and only you can stop it."

"I just told you: I don't believe in spirits. And I don't believe in visions either." The fear Chris had been feeling had been replaced by annoyance -- while there were still some bizarre coincidences going on here, he certainly wasn't about to chalk them up to some mythological nonsense. He turned on his heel and began to walk away, but before he got more than five steps, the old man was blocking his path. Chris stopped short, thinking, _How'd he get in front of me so fast? _Then he said aloud, "Look, I don't know who you are, or who put you up to this, but it's not funny, so leave me alone!" He went to step around, and once again, his path was blocked -- how such a withered-looking old man could move so quickly was beyond him. With a grunt, Chris started to reach out so he could push the man to the side, only to find himself grasping empty air as the Indian literally vanished before his eyes -- there was a moment where he thought he could see right through the old man, then there was nothing to see through at all. The young man yelped like he'd done earlier, pulling his hand back and cradling it to his chest as if he'd been bit. "What was that?" he gasped. "_What_ in God's name was _that_?"

Once more, there was a chuckle behind him. Chris looked and saw that the Indian was standing beside the tipi just as he'd been before. "The spirits told me you would be stubborn," he said with a smile. "When you are ready to believe, I will be here."

Still cradling his hand, Chris responded in the only fashion he could think of at that moment: he ran like Hell in the opposite direction.

* * *

By the time Chris got back to the chief's tipi, Hawk was just emerging with the others. They still appeared to be discussing things in the Blackfoot's native tongue, but when Hawk caught sight of Chris and the disturbed look on the young man's face, he came right over and asked what was the matter. "Nothing," Chris replied as he stole a glance over his shoulder. "Any chance we can get out of here now?"

"In a minute." Hawk turned back to the chief and spoke a few words, to which the chief appeared to reply in the affirmative. With a respectful nod, Hawk left the man and began to walk towards where they'd left their mounts, saying to Chris, "I was hoping to share in their hospitality for a few nights, but going by the stuff Chief Two Horses told me, I think I'd better get over to Fort Collins before things get any worse."

Fort Collins was nearly a good eight hours' ride from the encampment, and though they hadn't reached it by the time the sun set, Hawk decided that they'd be better off waiting until dawn to finish the journey, just in case some sentry with an itchy trigger finger got the wrong idea about two figures approaching in the dark. After a small meal, the two of them laid out on their bedrolls on opposite sides of the campfire, and Hawk busied himself with rolling them some cigarettes from his poke. As he worked, Chris asked him, "Why did you tell that old Indian all that stuff about me?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Back in the Blackfoot camp, this Indian came up and started talking all sorts of crazy things. He knew my name, he knew about me leaving home, and when I pressed him about it, he said the spirits told him all this stuff."

"What did he look like?"

"Old, very old. His hair was all white, and his face...he looked _really _old."

"Was he fast?"

"He was _scary_, that's what he was. At one point he just...I swear, he vanished right in front of me."

Hawk smiled and nodded, saying, "_Ahwehota._"

Chris's eyes widened. "He said the same thing to me. What does it mean?"

"That's his name. It's Blackfoot for 'He who runs beyond the wind'." He handed Chris one of the cigarettes he'd made, then lit his own with a twig he'd plucked from the edge of the fire. "He took the name a long time ago, after he gained his powers and was made the tribe's shaman. He's slowed down quite a bit these days, but from what I've been told, he really lived up to it when he was a much younger man. I've heard stories about him outracing tornadoes, or moving so fast that the ground caught fire."

"Uh-huh." The young man's voice had taken on the doubting tone that it always did whenever Hawk talked like that. "So now you're gonna claim that the spirits really did tell him all that stuff about me, and you never said a word?"

"When would I have had the time to tell him _anything_? You saw me go into the tipi with Two Horses and the others right after we got into camp. Honestly, I'm surprised Ahwehota's still alive...like you said, he's _really_ old."

Chris lit his cigarette and took a drag. "Okay, you've got a point...but I wonder who _did _tell him about me."

"You said it yourself: the spirits told him."

"Oh, come off it, Hawk!"

The man raised his eyebrows at Chris's outburst, but went on anyways. "Ahwehota's been able to commune with the spirits since he was a little boy, or at least that's what he says. Reckon that's the reason why they granted him his powers in the first place." Hawk smoked a little more, then said, "Question is, why are the spirits yapping in his ear about _you_?"

"It was all nonsense," Chris muttered. "Nonsense and coincidence."

"What was? C'mon, humor me, son. What did Ahwehota say?"

The young man sighed in defeat. "He kept telling me that I'd had a vision."

"Well, did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Have a vision. 'Cause if'n you did, I'd love to hear it. Ain't met many white folks that've had visions before."

"It wasn't a vision, it was just..." Chris sighed again. "After my fight with Big Pierre, I had a dream about my father. I chased after him, but I couldn't catch up, and then I...I found this Indian tribe that'd been slaughtered, and some soldiers, and there was this..." A hand unconsciously went to his throat, then he said, "It was just a dream, that's all. Dreams don't mean anything."

Hawk didn't respond. He finished up his cigarette and threw the butt into the fire, then stretched out on his bedroll. After a minute, he said, "I really wish you wouldn't dismiss such things out-of-hand, Chris. It was fine before, but now...now it's dangerous."

There was a disappointed tone in the man's voice, one which Chris had never heard Hawk take before, and it bothered him -- he felt like all the respect that he'd earned from the man had just been chucked out the window. "I'm sorry, Hawk, but...I just don't see things the way you do." The older man said nothing, and Chris soon laid down himself, watching the fire between them slowly die down as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It was still early when the two of them reached Fort Collins, and after a brief talk with the man at the gates, they were admitted. Though it was mainly a military installation, it also acted as a way station for any civilians headed west, and there were many a trapper or hunter mingling with the soldiers on the grounds. Not long after they dismounted, Chris spotted a familiar face, and called out, "Hey, MacHenry! Over here!"

"Maxwell? Is that really you?" The trapper approached them, looking Chris up and down in amazement. "Damnation, son, I thought you was dead!" He clapped the young man on the back so hard he almost knocked him over. "Big Pierre up an' disappeared 'round the same time you did...y'all know anything 'bout that?"

Chris looked over at Hawk, who tactfully replied, "There was a bit of an incident." He then offered his hand and a warm smile. "I'm Tom Hawkins, by the way."

"Ah, the infamous Tom Hawkins, at last." MacHenry gave him a good firm handshake, saying, "I've heard the name many a time, but this is the first time I've ever seen you in the flesh. To be honest, when Maxwell turned up lookin' for you, I figured it to be a lost cause, but it looks like I was wrong." He turned back to Chris. "You ever find out 'bout that other fella? Cramer or whatever?"

"Crandall...Jim Crandall," Chris answered quietly. "Yeah, I found out."

"Good, that's real good. Doin' pretty good myself. Finally decided to take a tracker's job for the Army...ain't so bad, havin' steady work." MacHenry grinned at the both of them and hitched thumb towards another section of the fort. "Listen, why don't y'all follow me over to the barracks? I'm sure one of the guys has a bottle of whiskey stashed in his gear somewheres."

"Maybe later," Hawk said. "Right now, I've got to speak with the commander...but I'm sure Chris would love to join you in a belt."

"Hawk, you know I don't..." But it was too late: MacHenry had tossed an arm around Chris's shoulders and was steering him towards the barracks. The young man looked back to see Hawk flagging down a nearby soldier, and Chris had the sneaking suspicion that he'd been ditched on purpose.

There were already a good many men gathered in the barracks, some passing around the aforementioned whiskey, others playing cards for what little pay they got as trackers and scouts for the Army. When MacHenry told them that Chris was a friend of Tom Hawkins, they welcomed him into their fold like he was a seasoned frontiersman, never mind that a year ago he didn't know the first thing about surviving in the wilderness. As he got comfortable around them (and he'd put away a couple shots...just to be polite, of course), he began to relate what few experiences he'd had so far under Hawk's tutelage, which started the other men telling their own stories, many of them rather boastful. All in all, they were good men, and Chris rather enjoyed their company -- it was a nice change from all the months spent with only Hawk to talk to.

It was getting on near midday when Hawk showed up in the barracks to collect Chris, and by then, the young man was beginning to feel a little tipsy from all the "polite" drinks he'd taken -- he swayed slightly when he got off the bunk he'd been sitting on. "Son, I do believe you're sloshed," Hawk said.

"I'm fine, really. I just...I can walk it off." He took a few steps, then walked right into another bunk and almost fell over. Some of the scouts watching let out a guffaw.

"Reckon you'll be safer if'n you do your walking outside." Hawk took hold of Chris's arm and carefully steered him out of the barracks. "You're not gonna sick up on me, are you?"

"No, no...maybe." He leaned against the side of the building, his eyes closed. "Ugh...didn't realize how much I'd put away 'til I got up."

"Well, at least tell me you had fun."

"Yeah, it was pretty fun. They seemed impressed that I was traveling with you...felt like I was riding on your coattails a bit, though." He straightened up as best he could and asked, "How'd it go with the C.O.? Everything get smoothed over?"

"Mostly, but it still doesn't look good." Hawk leaned against the building himself. "The white settlers coming in are complaining to the Army that the Blackfoot are hunting on their land and taking their livestock, but the whites don't seem to understand that they went and set up housekeeping right in the middle of the Blackfoot's territory. I got the commander to agree to talk with any more settlers heading into the area about just where the borders are, and to warn them of the consequences if they don't listen, but the ones that're already here are staying put, and the Blackfoot are just gonna have to work around them. It ain't the best solution, but the only other choice is relocation...of the Blackfoot, mind you, not the settlers." He sighed and said, "Same old, same old: treaties ain't worth the paper they're written on, and the Army would rather give the Indians the shaft than stick by their word."

"I'm sorry," Chris said, and he meant it. While he certainly wasn't responsible for the predicament, he couldn't in good conscience agree with the double-standard the government maintained with the natives. "So, what do we do now? Head back to the Blackfoot camp and deliver the news?"

"As unpleasant a job as it is...yeah. At least they might take it a little better coming outta my mouth than some hick soldier's."

"I suppose you're right. Let me say goodbye to MacHenry, and we'll..."

"You don't need to say goodbye," Hawk told him. "You're staying here."

Chris looked at him, surprised. "What for? Are you afraid of how they might take the news or something?"

"Nope...I'm cutting you loose." The young man's jaw dropped as Hawk said, "You're a real smart kid, Chris, and you've took to the lessons I've taught you well enough, but I reckon there's some things that I just can't teach you, no matter how hard I try." He looked off across the grounds of the fort. "I hate to admit it, but you ain't never gonna be able to fit into my world proper, so I think it's best that we part ways. I already talked with Colonel Haggard 'bout you staying on here, and he seemed agreeable to it, once I vouched for you. Reckon maybe you can team up with MacHenry."

"Does this have to do with what we were talking about last night? Because it does, then this isn't fair!" He jabbed a finger at the older man, saying, "You never had a problem with me disagreeing with you before. 'Different minds, different thoughts', that's what you always said. Now because I don't believe in what some older-than-dirt Indian said, you want to get rid of me?"

"I'm not getting rid of you, I'm bringing you back to where you belong." Hawk leveled his gaze at him. "Now don't go blaming yourself over this -- if'n every white man could learn to think like a red man, we wouldn't have half the problems we do -- I just figure that it's better for you stay with your own people than for me to keep dragging you into situations that you obviously ain't comfortable in."

"I was fine with it, I just...dammit." The young man punched his fist on his thigh in frustration, then said, "Don't do this to me, Hawk, please. I won't know what to do with myself if you leave me here like this."

"Don't fret 'bout it, son. Like I said, you're a real smart kid, and I'm sure you'll make your way in the world just fine without me." He put his hands on Chris's shoulders. "You do me a favor, though: keep an eye on things out here for me. If'n the situation between the Blackfoot and the Army starts to get outta hand, you send word to me in Howling Forks, okay? Reckon I'll be heading back that way in a couple months."

"Sure." He tried to put up a brave front, but in reality, he already felt lost.

"Trust me, son, this is for the best. You just remember everything I taught you, and you'll do fine." He smirked and tapped a finger on Chris's thunderbird charm. "And if'n you ever get yourself into trouble, don't be afraid to ask for a little help."

Chris nodded and put a hand over the charm, and kept it there as he watched the older man walk towards the stables to retrieve his horse. When he realized he was still holding onto it, however, he let his hand drop, shaking his head at his own foolishness.

* * *

MacHenry and the others seemed glad to find out that Chris was sticking around Fort Collins, and made room for him in the barracks. They also made quite a few jokes about how they were planning on breaking him in, but the young man's mind was too focused on other matters to be worried about that. Even as he prepared for bed that night, he kept wondering how he'd manage without Hawk watching out for him. But soon sleep overtook his weary mind, bringing dreams that were unpleasantly familiar.

He saw the three dead soldiers again, still suspended from poles and their bodies horribly desecrated, with the ruins of the Indian encampment stretched out behind them. Unlike the first time he saw it, however, he recognized it for sure as the Blackfoot's camp...plus he was fully aware that he was indeed dreaming. _But if that's the case_, he thought as he walked past the corpses strewn about, _how come I can't seem to wake up?_ Then Chris spotted the tipi with the zigzagging pattern painted upon it, just as he'd seen it before with both his waking and dreaming eyes. Only this time, he also saw Ahwehota sprawled on the ground before it, and the owl that had attacked Chris in his other dream was sitting atop Ahwehota's chest, picking at the man's bloody scalp with its beak.

The young man froze, then started to back up slowly, but it was too late: the owl let out a terrible screech and took to the air, coming straight at him with its talons extended. Desperate to get away, Chris tried to move faster, but only succeeded in tripping himself up and falling to the ground. He could see the owl descending, flecks of blood on its claws, and before he realized what he was doing, Chris clutched at the thunderbird charm around his neck and held it before him. To his amazement, a shaft of light suddenly shot out of the charm and struck the owl -- the animal screamed in pain as its feathers burned away, revealing a very human form. Chris could only lay there, jaw agape, as he looked upon Wise Owl's face twisting in anger, the charm's pure white light illuminating his features in perfect detail. "You really think that can stop me?" Wise Owl spat at him. "You have no power...no faith!" He rushed at Chris, fingernails growing into claws once more as he reached for the young man's throat and...

Chris sat up on his bunk, panting hard as he stared wide-eyed into the darkness of the barracks. All was quiet except for the soft sounds of breathing around him, sometimes punctuated by a buzzing snore. "Just a dream," he gasped, sounding like he was trying hard to convince himself of that fact. "Not real, just..." Then he felt something sharp digging into his hand. He looked down and saw that he was holding onto the thunderbird charm -- he'd grabbed onto it in his sleep and ripped it right off his neck, gripping it so tightly that its carved feathers had cut his palm.

"Just a dream," he said again, looking down at the charm as if addressing it directly, then laid back down on the bunk. Despite his denial, he didn't set the charm aside, instead laying it over his heart with both hands covering it.

* * *

Time passed, and Chris settled into the routine duties of an Army scout, which consisted mainly of riding along with the soldiers when they did patrol or went out hunting. It was steady work, as MacHenry put it, but tedious as well, and Chris found himself second-guessing his decision to stay in the West. There was no newfound desire to return home, however, just doubt that this was the life he was meant for. He tried to ignore the feeling, attributing it to being separated from Hawk so abruptly, but it still dug at him late at night as he lay awake in his bunk.

A few months after coming to Fort Collins, Chris visited the Blackfoot camp once more. It wasn't by choice -- he'd been avoiding any assignment that might bring him into contact with that strange old Indian again -- but while riding along with a scouting party one afternoon, the lieutenant in charge suddenly decided to pay the tribe a "goodwill visit" since they happened to be in the area. Chris couldn't very well likely refuse to go, so he sucked it up and followed along, opting to stay with their mounts along with another scout as the lieutenant and some of the other soldiers lorded the authority of the Untied States Army over Chief Two Horses and his people.

As they waited, Chris's fellow scout seemed less interested in watching horses than in leering at the female Blackfoot that passed nearby. "Damnation, would you take a gander at that 'un there." He slapped Chris on the back until the young man picked up his head. "She's plump in all the right places, I'd say. Be quite a sight outta that buckskin, don'tcha think?"

"Quit it, Wilkes," Chris said. "It's not right to stare like that."

"Ain't no harm in it. They's just a bunch of animals anyhow...ain't got no proper Christian notions in their heads. Hell, I hear-tell their men kin take a half-dozen wives if they want, no sin in it at all. Folks that'd do that cain't be too concerned with other folks lookin' on...I'll bet they enjoy it."

"Well I don't, so quit."

Wilkes made a rude noise. "What do you know 'bout it, anyhow? Boy like you's probably never even dipped his wick afore...an' your hand don't count none."

Chris felt his face grow hot as he tried to think of a good comeback, then he saw something out of the corner of his eye that took his mind off of it. "What's he doing here?" the young man muttered under his breath, and started to walk away from the horses. Wilkes said something, but Chris ignored him and kept on going, his eyes locked on the man making his way through the camp.

As he got closer, Chris confirmed that it was indeed Wise Owl he was seeing, but what the shaman was doing here amongst the Blackfoot was a mystery -- from what Chris knew, Hawk was one of the few people that ever left Echo Valley on a regular basis, not to mention that the valley itself was about a week's ride from there. He thought about calling out to the man, but that old nervous feeling he always got in Wise Owl's presence had come over him, so instead he followed silently at a discreet distance. The man's destination soon became evident: the tipi with the zigzagging red stripe on the side, which apparently belonged to Ahwehota.

The old Indian sat cross-legged in front of the tipi with a piece of buckskin laid out before him, various stones, feathers, and other small objects arranged upon it. He greeted Wise Owl in his native tongue and gestured for his fellow shaman to sit beside him, but Wise Owl did not, choosing instead to continue standing with his arms crossed. Though Chris couldn't make head nor tail of their conversation, their body language was easy enough to read throughout: Wise Owl appeared to be angry about something, and was leveling most of that anger at Ahwehota. The Blackfoot seemed to take it in stride, however, keeping his voice calm and remaining passive while Wise Owl gestured about them with increasing mania. Then his anger reached a fever pitch, and he kicked his foot at the objects Ahwehota had continued to contemplate throughout their conversation, knocking them into disarray. The older shaman focused directly on him after that, but it apparently wasn't enough for Wise Owl, who pulled something out of a pouch hanging from his belt and moved towards Ahwehota in a violent manner.

Though Chris still didn't know what to make of Ahwehota, he certainly couldn't stand by and let the old man get hurt, either. He'd been peering at them from behind a nearby tipi, and had started to step out into the open when he witnessed something inexplicable: Ahwehota disappeared, and a whirlwind took his place, buffeting Wise Owl to and fro until the man fell to the ground, the object he'd pulled from his pouch flying from his hand -- to Chris, it appeared to be a small cat's skull, painted with strange designs. When the wind died down, Chris saw Ahwehota standing over Wise Owl with a steely look in his eyes, and all the feathers and stones and such that had been scattered moments before were now neatly arranged on the buckskin once again. The older shaman spoke sharply, pointing back the way Wise Owl had come, and the man slowly got his feet and began to leave, but not before scooping up the skull he'd dropped and giving Ahwehota a withering look. Chris quickly ducked back behind the other tipi before he could be seen, clutching at the thunderbird charm around his neck just as he'd done in his dream -- he didn't know why, but he felt much safer doing so.

Once Wise Owl had passed out of sight, Chris came out of hiding again and looked towards Ahwehota's tipi, only to see the old Indian hunched over, hands on his knees and breathing hard. Just as before, concern overcame any wariness Chris had of the man, and he went to Ahwehota's side, saying, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I used to be...so much faster," he replied, wheezing. "But now...it wears on me. If I were a younger man, Wise Owl would not dare threaten me so."

"But why'd he threaten you? What the heck is he doing out here?"

Ahwehota straightened up and regarded Chris. "Are you ready to believe now?"

"Don't start that stuff again. I'm just trying to figure out why Wise Owl would travel all this way to bully an old man."

With a sigh, Ahwehota gestured towards the buckskin and its contents laying on the ground, saying, "I have read the signs for many months now. They speak of great evil coming...death of many innocents. I ask the spirits to show me this evil, so I may stop it. They tell me it comes in the guise of a friend. Then they tell me...of my own death. I do not fear dying, for I have lived for so long...but before I die, they tell me I must pass on my gift." He smiled and pointed a bony finger at Chris. "The spirits chose you, Christopher Maxwell, to become the Windrunner. They see your heart...and judge it as good. They say that you will carry the gift further than I can dream...to a time beyond the old magic, to a place that has not been born yet. But before I can give it to you, you must believe...for if you do not, then the gift will die within you."

"I can believe in facts, but not in this." Chris gestured towards the buckskin himself, but in a dismissive way. "I'll admit, I've seen a lot of strange things in the past few months, but there's no trick you can pull that'll make me believe in magic and spirits and what-have-you. Where I come from, those sort of things are for children and half-wits, not for educated men." He started to turn away, saying, "You'll just have to find somebody else to sell your snake-oil to."

Quietly, Ahwehota said, "In your dreams, do you see Wise Owl's face?"

Chris stopped and looked back at the old man, but said nothing.

"I would not have suspected him...until today," Ahwehota continued. "There is terrible anger in him...at the whites, and those who tolerate them. He speaks of destroying them...no matter the cost. That is why he came here today. He wanted me to give him my gift...to add it to the magic he has been collecting, but I told him it is promised to another...one who believes in justice for all peoples, not only his own."

"So you're saying that Wise Owl is this 'great evil'? That doesn't make sense. I mean, the man saved my life in Echo Valley...if he hates whites so much, why do that?"

"Perhaps to cast off suspicion," the old man replied. "I do not think that the Sons of Tomahawk...would approve of what he is planning." He shook his head, his white hair stirring gently with the breeze. "They are very dark plans...full of blood, from both your people and mine. I think he would rather destroy the world....than let the whites have it."

Chris stood in silence for a moment, then said, "I'll let Hawk know about Wise Owl...that he threatened you, that is, not about the rest of this stuff. You and your spirits are on your own in that respect."

"Do as you will, Christopher Maxwell...and pray that you do not regret your decisions later."

The young man gave Ahwehota a nod, then walked back to where he'd left Wilkes with the horses. In the back of his mind, he mulled over what the old Indian had said, stripping away the mumbo-jumbo and leaving only the rational evidence. While he couldn't put much stock in Ahwehota's story regarding Wise Owl hating whites to the point of wanting to kill them, that didn't change that fact that Wise Owl did attack the old man with no apparent provocation. _That's enough to warrant a letter to Hawk_, Chris thought. _Not exactly the sort of trouble he wanted me to keep an eye out for, but still..._

He started working on the letter as soon as he and the others returned to Fort Collins, describing the incident in detail but omitting the supernatural portion of the old man's ramblings. The only part that Chris got stuck over was the odd whirlwind that had sprung up in the middle of it all -- he eventually chalked it up as a dust devil, a phenomenon he'd heard of but never witnessed. Once he had the whole thing set down proper, he dropped the letter off with an outgoing supply wagon and didn't give the matter a second thought.

The next day, Chris was on work detail in the stables, making sure the horses were fed and well cared for -- a nice change from his usual scouting duties. He helped prepare mounts that morning for Wilkes and three soldiers, who were going out on a routine scouting patrol near the Blackfoot camp. When they weren't back by noontime, he didn't think much of it, but as the sun got lower in the west, a murmur of concern started to go up around the fort. Colonel Haggard was talking about making up a search party when one of the sentries spotted a lone rider coming their way. Some men ran out to meet him, and when one of them yelled for someone to fetch the doctor, a few more men rushed out, Chris included. None of them were prepared for what was out there.

The rider was Wilkes...or what was left of him. His face was nothing more than bloody strips of flesh, and his left eye had been torn out. Blood had soaked through most of his clothing, and the stink of it made Chris retch, but he found he wasn't the only one turning green over it. Despite it all, one of the men kept it together well enough to pull Wilkes off the horse and lay him out on the ground. "What happened?" the man asked him. "Who did this? Where's the others?"

"I-I-In...j-j-juh...Injuh..." Wilkes choked out, his remaining eye rolling madly.

"Christ, his guts are gone," another man said. "There ain't nothin' but a hole..."

"_Shut up_," the first man hissed, then looked back at Wilkes. "You're gonna be alright, the doc's on his way. Now, who did this? Was it Injuns? Is that what you said?"

"Guh...groun'...oudda...heeeeee..." Wilkes's body convulsed, his hands digging at the earth beneath him, then he became still. The men assembled also fell quiet, not so much out of respect but out of total shock. The doctor arrived moments later, with Colonel Haggard right behind, though the presence of neither man made any difference.

The colonel's eyes lingered over what remained of Wilkes, then he pointed to the assorted soldiers and scouts around him, Chris included. "I want all you men at the gate in fifteen minutes, saddled up and loaded for bear. A man bleeding this bad had to leave some sort of back trail, and you're gonna ride until you find out where in the Hell it leads." They all snapped to attention at that, and fifteen minutes later, over two dozen men were ready to ride out onto the darkening plain. Chris felt like he was going to vomit again, but he held himself together as best he could as he and the others started out.

They rode on through the night, doing their best to follow the trail by moonlight, but by daybreak, they hadn't found a trace of the others. When the trail went surprisingly cold, they decided to split up the men -- Chris was put into a group heading westward, in the general direction of the Blackfoot camp, along with MacHenry and two soldiers. By then, a lot of talk was circulating about who the guilty party was, and many seemed to agree that Wilkes named his killers with his dying breath. "You know damn well and good it was them Indians," one of the soldiers in Chris's group kept saying as they rode. "Only savages could do something like that to a man. They ain't got no conscience."

Then at midday, the four of them caught sight of what appeared to be three men standing atop a hill. They turned their mounts towards it and rode fast, calling out but receiving no reply. When they got closer, the reason was evident: what looked from a distance like three standing men were actually three men hanging upside-down from poles, long dead and baking in the sun. Each had been stripped to the waist, their bellies flayed open and their internal organs neatly arranged at the base of the poles.

Chris nearly fainted off his horse. "This can't be happening," he whispered, staring at the bodies. "It's not real, it was just a dream, _it's not real..._"

The others ignored him and dismounted. One of the soldiers knelt down to examine the faces of the dead men, saying, "Perkins, O'Donnell, Miller...this is them, alright. The sons of bitches gutted 'em like animals."

"I told ya it was Indians!" the other soldier said. "Lookit what they did! Sick savages, that's what they all are!" He pointed to the west. "Their damn camp's only maybe five miles away...they's tryin' to make fools of us!"

"I can't believe they'd do this," MacHenry muttered. "Them Blackfoot seemed peaceable enough, for the most part."

"That's what they _want_ you to think, right before they slit your damn throat!"

Chris somehow managed to find the strength to approach the bodies. He could see the markings carved into their flesh, just as he'd seen in his dreams. "This can't be happening," he whispered again, but his denial couldn't make it disappear. He _had_ to deny it, though: if he admitted that the gory image he kept seeing in his dreams was real, then _what else_ might become real as well? Behind him, he could hear the one soldier condemning the Blackfoot, talking about how he was going to gut every one of them for what they'd done to his friends, and a numbing realization swept over the young man. "Oh dear God, no...no, you can't do it!" Chris went over to the soldier and took hold of his shoulders, yelling, "You can't kill them all! It's not right!"

"The Hell's the matter with you, boy?" the soldier said, and gave him a shove. "You want to let a bunch of savages get away with slaughtering your fellow white man? Best to wipe them all out than to give 'em the chance to do it again."

"That's not justice, it's murder...and I won't let you get away with it!" Chris began to punch the man in the chest, as if he could hammer the point home with his fists.

"Maxwell, get a hold of yourself!" MacHenry said, but Chris wasn't listening, all his attention was focused on the soldier before him, on making him listen no matter what, even if he had to beat him up to do it. Unfortunately, he was seriously outclassed, and the soldier gave him a good swift backhand across the face. The young man went flying, sprawling out near the dead bodies, who stared at him with lifeless eyes as the soldier bent down and knocked him out cold with one punch.

* * *

When Chris regained consciousness, he found himself laying on his bunk back in the fort, the early-morning sun coming through the windows. His head was throbbing, and he let out a groan as he tried to sit up. Then he heard a voice say, "'Bout damn time. I figured you was gonna be out for a whole 'nother day."

He looked over to the next bunk to see MacHenry sitting there watching him. "What...what happened?" Chris asked. "How'd I get here?"

"How do ya think? Slung over a horse." MacHenry glared at him. "I dunno what your problem is, but you're lucky they didn't toss you in the stockade. I managed to convince them that y'all just went a little screwy 'cause of the blood, so you'd best keep that in mind when they get back."

"Get back? What are you..." The young man paled, then he jumped off the bunk and began to head for the door out of the barracks, but MacHenry held him back. "Let me go, damn you! I've got to stop them!"

"You're too late, they left hours ago. The colonel's leadin' most of the regiment out to the Blackfoot camp -- they're gonna bring every last one of 'em into custody."

"No, they're not. They're gonna kill them...they're gonna slaughter them all!"

"What makes you so damn sure 'bout that, Maxwell?"

"Because...because I know, that's all." He couldn't bring himself to say the real reason -- he barely believed it himself, so how could he convince MacHenry? "You've gotta let me go, Mac. I can save them, I...I'm _supposed_ to save them."

"An' I'm supposed to make sure you stay put, so take a seat an' quit talkin' crazy." He tried to force Chris back down on the bunk, but the young man slammed a fist into his gut, then his jaw. MacHenry staggered back, and Chris bolted.

A few soldiers had remained behind to protect the fort, but none of them noticed Chris as he made his way to the front gates. A man on horseback was coming in from an outside patrol, and as soon as he dismounted, Chris rushed forward and knocked him over, then swung up into the saddle himself. The soldiers manning the gates tried to shut them before Chris could get away, but they were too slow, and the young man rode out of the fort amid shouts of alarm. It would take about eight hours to reach the Blackfoot camp, which he might be able to cut down to seven if he drove the horse hard enough...but he had no idea how much of a lead the regiment had on him. _Don't think about it_, he told himself as the horse galloped across the plain, _just ride. Ride and pray._

The trip seemed to take forever. The sun climbed in the sky as he rode westward, eyes fixed on the horizon in the hope that he'd spot the regiment, but he was alone. Around the fifth hour, his horse began to foam at the muzzle from exhaustion, but he didn't care, he just dug in his spurs and pushed the animal further. Then an hour later, he saw the smoke. It was just a thin tendril against the wide blue sky, but Chris knew that, if he could see it this far away, it must be a rather large blaze. _Too late_, he thought, the words drumming in his brain in rhythm with the horse's hooves as he rode on, unwilling to stop. _Too late too late you killed them all too late..._

When the encampment finally came within view, he stopped upon a rise of land and stared with wide eyes as the tension that had been building between the two races for months finally found horrific release. People were screaming in both Blackfoot and English as fires ate their way through the camp. Bodies were scattered about the ground, some of them trampled by horses as the soldiers rode roughshod through the area, firing at anything that moved. A few soldiers had dismounted and were fighting hand-to-hand with the tribe's warriors, who wanted nothing more than to protect their home from this invading force. The smell of blood and black powder was sickeningly pervasive, just as it had been in his dreams...and he knew how this would all end if he didn't do something.

"_Stop this!_" he cried, and drove his already-exhausted mount into the thick of it. A rifle hung in a scabbard attached to the saddle, and he drew it out as he rode, firing over the soldiers' heads to get their attention. Unfortunately, some of them thought his intentions were much more lethal, and opened fire upon him in return. Chris's horse reared up as the bullets whizzed by, and the poor animal caught a few in its hide. Chris tumbled out of the saddle, a bullet sinking into him as well -- lucky for him, it wasn't fatal, but considering all the blood now pumping out of the wound in his thigh, it soon would be. He hit the ground and lay there stunned as his dying horse added its screams to the others filling the air. _Gotta get up...gotta move_, he thought, and started crawling on his hands and knees towards a nearby tipi, hoping he didn't get trampled before he reached cover. He was almost there when he saw another man sprawled out in the tipi's shadow, his long, snowy-white hair coated with blood. "Ahwehota!" Chris called out, but the old Indian didn't stir. Gritting his teeth, the young man climbed to his feet and hobbled over to him. As he got closer, he could see that the man's skull had been cracked open like an eggshell -- whether from a bullet or a horse's hoof, it was impossible to tell -- and there were multiple bullets wounds peppering his bare chest. Chris ripped off his shirt, then fell to his knees beside the man, trying to use the garment to stop the gouts of blood pouring out of the head wound. "Don't die, please," he sobbed. "Oh dear Jesus, don't let him die..."

The old man's lips moved slightly, and he managed to choke out, "Not...fast enough. Used to be...much faster...younger..." His deep brown eyes, now flecked with red, focused on Chris. "You will be faster."

"Don't talk. You're gonna be okay." His shirt was a mess already, but the blood continued to flow. "I'm gonna get you out of here, I promise. I'm gonna save you."

"I am already gone," Ahwehota said. "My ancestors...they call to me. But they must wait...until I give my gift to you."

"Don't start that again. You know I don't believe..."

"_Yes, you do_." The man spoke with a force in his voice that belied his condition. "You have seen your vision...become reality. You knew after you saw the white soldiers...that death would come here next. Your mind refuses to acknowledge...what your heart knows is true..._but it must._ Just as you accepted the truth...of your mother and father...you must now accept this truth...make it a part of you."

He shook his head in denial, but even as he did so, his mind went back to that old childhood memory again: hanging above the Warrior River, trying to decide whether or not he should jump. Despite all the madness around him, despite the dying man laying in his arms, that image refused to go away. This time, however, the jump before him was much larger, more treacherous, even more so than the one he'd made when he found out about his birth parents. Truly, this was a leap of faith: to accept the impossible as probable, to acknowledge that there were forces in the universe that existed outside the confines of what he knew to be the rational world, and to embrace the fact that those forces had led him here, to this place, to this moment, for reasons he may never fully understand...but that didn't matter, so long as he believed in them.

"Yes," Chris said after an eternity. "Yes, I know...I believe..."

"Then you are ready." Ahwehota closed his eyes and raised a bloody hand toward Chris's bare chest, a mournful sound coming from somewhere deep within the man. With his gore-stained finger, the old Indian began to draw a simple zigzagging line across the young man's skin, and the sound Ahwehota made became louder, drilling into Chris's skull until that was all he could hear. Beneath the design, he could feel his heart begin to beat faster, so much faster than it ever had before in his life, the blood in his body screaming through his veins as it tried to keep up with the changes being wrought upon it. Sparks of electricity began to spread across his skin like wildfire, dancing over his teeth and tongue as he cried out in pain, and still his heart beat faster, only now it had become like the whir of a hummingbird's wings, just a constant thrum of motion in his chest, and Chris thought, _When will it stop Jesus make this stop this'll kill me if it goes on much longer my heart's going to explode just stop it stop it stop it stop it LET ME GO!_

He broke free somehow, stumbling to his feet and looking down at himself in shock. Electricity was still arcing off of his skin, but it didn't hurt so much now, and he realized that the wound in his thigh had completely healed. He also realized that his hands were shaking so badly that he could see right though them -- he tried to make them stop, but the best he could do was slow them down so that they were more visible. "What did you do to me?" he asked Ahwehota, but as he gazed down on the old man, he realized it was a pointless question: Ahwehota was dead, his body shriveled and ancient-looking, like a desert mummy. Whatever power he'd given Chris must have been the only thing keeping him alive. _But what sort of power is this?_ he thought. _What do I do with it?_

Then he noticed how quiet everything around him had become. He looked up to see that the entire world had come to a standstill: people were frozen in mid-stride, the hooves of galloping horses were suspended inches above the ground, bullets hung in the air like ironclad bumblebees...no, wait, there _was_ movement. It was agonizingly, impossibly slow, but things were in motion. The bullets, to be sure, were the fastest, advancing a half-inch every few seconds, and Chris thought, _I could just pluck them out of the air with my bare hands if I wanted._ No sooner had the notion entered his mind than he found himself racing forward, his eyes focused on a single lead ball lazily spinning towards a wailing child. He wrapped his hand around it with ease, then turned around and whipped the bullet back at the soldier who'd fired it, watching as it splintered the soldier's rifle, then clipped the man in the head, all of it happening at an eerily slow pace. _Well, that's one_, he thought. _Now for the rest._

Chris began to run, leaving lightning in his wake as he zipped across every inch of the encampment in seconds. Bullets were either thrown back or swatted into the ground. Rifles were snatched from the hands of unsuspecting soldiers and broken in two. An overzealous corporal in the midst of slitting a Blackfoot warrior's throat suddenly found his jaw shattered. And then, just as fast as it had started, it was over: Colonel Haggard, confused but terrified, called for his men to retreat, and they all began to turn tail and run. Chris continued to take a few swipes at the soldiers until he was sure that they wouldn't double back, then he finally allowed himself to slow down...but he quickly realized that he couldn't come to a complete stop. Electricity kept crackling across his skin as every cell in his body vibrated, and his heart was still hammering away in his chest at an impossibly-fast rate. _You've got to calm down_, he told himself. _If you calm down maybe you can stop but I can't calm down I can't stop God this is starting to hurt again God please how do you stop this?_

In the midst of his distress, a murmur began to rise around him, and he saw many of the surviving Blackfoot approaching. Though Chris still didn't understand their native tongue, one word they spoke stood out clear as a bell: "_Ahwehota...Ahwehota..._"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not...he's gone, he's dead." But either they didn't understand him or they didn't care, for they continued to say the name, a few going so far as to lay their hands on his bare shoulders or falling to their knees before him. Some of the people he saw were injured, some were weeping, and all of them had the same silent plea in their eyes: _Help us. You have the power. Help us._ But Chris didn't know how to do such -- Ahwehota had given him speed, but nothing more that he could tell. Perhaps he could use this power to heal them, just as the wound in his leg had healed up, but without knowing exactly how to do so, he was just as likely to kill them, and there had been far too much death today. _I have to do something, though_, he thought, _but what? What more can I do?_ Then he recalled what Ahwehota said about Wise Owl, and what Chris himself had seen in his dreams...and he knew that the fight wasn't over just yet.

As difficult as it was, he turned away from the Indians and began to run once more, this time heading in the direction of Echo Valley. Under normal circumstances, it would take a week of hard riding to reach the valley from the Blackfoot camp...but Chris knew he was anything but normal now. He pushed himself as hard and as fast as he could, his legs becoming a blur as he flew across the plains, miles falling behind him in the blink of an eye. Barely a minute after Chris left the Blackfoot camp, he passed by the outskirts of Howling Forks, the windows in Kubert's trading post exploding inward from the force of the thunderous boom the young man's passing generated. Despite that, he never slowed down, flying up the path winding along Table Mountain and down the other side until he reached the heart of Echo Valley, his bootheels digging long furrows into the ground as he skidded to a stop in the middle of the Indian camp. A few of the residents cried out at his sudden appearance, unsure if this new arrival was friend of foe. From the direction of his family's tipi, Small Eagle came running, staring in disbelief at the young man and saying, "Chris? Is that you? What in God's name is going on?"

"No time...the Blackfoot...something terrible happened." Chris found it even harder now to slow down to a normal speed, much less talk in a way that his words didn't become a blur of sound. "Hawk...gotta find him...talk to him...he might know..."

Small Eagle looked towards his tipi and yelled his brother's name, then turned back to Chris, saying, "He just got back home yesterday. He mentioned about Two Horses' tribe having some difficulty with the Army, but this..." He gestured at the young man, whose entire body was crackling with energy. "What in blazes happened to you?"

"That is a very good question," Chris heard someone say, and from out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wise Owl approach, a stony expression on his face like always.

The man's presence took Chris by surprise. "How did you get back here so fast?"

"Get back from where?" Small Eagle asked. "Uncle Wise Owl's been here ever since you went off with Hawk."

"No...no, that's not true." The young man pointed at the shaman, saying, "I saw you in the Blackfoot camp just a few days ago. You told Ahwehota about how you wanted...to kill all the whites, but he wouldn't go along with it...so you set up his whole damn tribe." He paused as his fury built up inside of him, making him lose his grip and speed up again -- he reined it back as best he could, gritting his teeth at the pain it caused. "Y-you wanted to...to kill them all...simply because one man...didn't agree with you."

Many of the other Indians had begun to gather around them, all curious about what was going on. Hawk was soon amongst them, his eyes widening when he got a glimpse of Chris. "Holy shit," was all he could manage to say.

"I don't know if'n what you're saying is true," Small Eagle told Chris, "but you'd better have some sort of proof if'n you're gonna go accusing Wise Owl of murder."

"You want proof? How about this?" Chris held up his hands, dark red smears coating his palms, not to mention his bare chest. "This is Ahwehota's blood! I held the man in my arms as he died! He gave me this power with his last damn breath!"

"He _gave_ it to _you_?" Wise Owl said incredulously. "He made a mistake, obviously. It's far too much for you to handle -- look at how you're trembling in pain." He approached Chris, a hand dipping towards the pouch hanging from his belt and pulling out a small cat's skull, the same one he'd produced before attacking Ahwehota. "Come, son of Jim Crandall, let me take this pain from you."

"Keep that thing away from me!" He slapped it out of Wise Owl's hand, and he could swear that he felt the tiny skull sink its teeth into his hand for a moment. When he pulled his hand back, he realized that it felt slow and clumsy...in other words, it felt normal again. "That's what you wanted to do to Ahwehota that day," he said. "If he wouldn't give you his power willingly, you were going to suck it out of him."

Small Eagle had caught the skull and was turning it over in his hands, examining the designs painted on it. "Parasitic magic," he muttered. "Feeds off of life forces, twists the natural order out of shape...this isn't what our shamans use. It's anathema." He dropped the skull on the ground and crushed it under his heel. "What the Hell have you been messing with, Uncle?"

Wise Owl looked from Small Eagle to Hawk, then a wicked smile spread over his face. "Let me show you," he said, and suddenly, the ground began to rip open under their feet, gnarled roots springing up and wrapping around the brothers. The people gathered around started screaming and ran, afraid that they might be next. The only one unfazed by it all was Chris, who leapt forward in a flash, tearing Hawk and Small Eagle free before the roots could get a solid grip, then carried them far away from the threat. Once they were clear, Chris ran flat-out at Wise Owl, only to realize too late how foolish that was as the shaman raised a hand, making a thick mass of thorny vines erupt out of the ground right in front of him. Chris dug his heels in to slow down, but the vines quickly enveloped him up to his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. "Did you think I only knew one little trick?" Wise Owl said, stalking up to Chris as the vines constricted, squeezing the breath out of him and the thorns drawing blood. "I've been collecting so many different types of magic over the past year. One of them lets me cross great distances as easily as walking through a doorway...it has become a very useful tool for me."

"I'll bet," Chris choked out. "You could be gone and back...before anybody knew it. Helps keep your plans...under wraps...until you're ready."

"Indeed. I wasn't going to make my move just yet, but you've forced me to act sooner." Wise Owl reached up and grabbed Chris by the back of the head, glaring directly into his eyes and saying, "The sacrifice I'd made served a dual purpose: it not only stirred up the white soldiers, it was also meant to collect up Ahwehota's power once he died, along with the souls of all the others slain. In a way, the slaughter was really Ahwehota's fault. I tried to make him see that the whites would never be happy until they'd taken everything from us, so what did he do? He gave his power to an ignorant white child, just to spite me!" The vines constricted even tighter in response to the shaman's anger. "It's not bad enough that your people are destroying our lands and killing us like vermin, now you're taking our magic as well...but not for long." Another animal skull -- a bird's skull, judging by the shape -- suddenly appeared in Wise Owl's other hand, and he started to bring it up towards Chris's face. "I will have the power of the Windrunner, one way or another."

Before he could do anything, however, a gunshot rang out, and the bird skull exploded, taking part of Wise Owl's hand with it. The shaman howled in pain, then turned to see the Sons of Tomahawk standing nearby with rifles. "That was a warning shot, Uncle," Small Eagle said, keeping his Plains rifle leveled at the shaman as Hawk reloaded their father's old flintlock. "You do so much as twitch funny, and I'll put one in you damn head."

"And now it begins, just as I always knew it would: the Half-Breeds rise up and betray their red brothers...in favor of their white ones." Wise Owl stepped away from Chris and looked about at the rest of the tribe, many of whom had taken cover but still lingered close enough to see and hear. "You all know the prophecies of Strong Bow! You know he warned us of the coming of the white tribe! But even he could not see how their coming would destroy us from within!" He leveled his gaze at the brothers, saying, "First it was Tomahawk, whom my father dared to call Strong Bow reborn. He bedded my sister and tainted our line with his mongrel sons. Then he brought Jim Crandall into our midst, and forced me to bless him with the sight which no white man was meant to possess, polluting our valley even more. And because of Crandall's presence, it later drew _him_ here." With his good hand, he pointed back at Chris, who was still struggling to free himself from Wise Owl's magic. "The white tribe was never meant to set foot in Echo Valley, yet we keep letting them in, one by one, until one day they will outnumber us in our own home." He turned to the others once more and said, "We cannot stand by anymore and let this happen! We must purge the white blood from our valley! And then we must purge it from the rest of the land, until it all belongs to our people once more!"

"Echo Valley wasn't founded just to keep out the whites," Hawk said evenly. "It was founded to be a place of peace, a place where those who were sick of bloodshed and blind hatred could escape that nonsense and live in harmony...but you seem to have forgotten that part. Matter of fact, you seem to be reveling in the idea of killing people just to prove that you're right. If anybody's polluting the valley, Wise Owl, it's you."

"How dare you," the shaman gasped, then raised his hands, blood dripping off his wounded hand and down his arm. "_How...dare...you!_" He whipped his hands to the sides, and a wall of flame began to tear across the ground at the brothers, who quickly retreated as Wise Owl screamed at them in ancient tongues, cursing their existence.

Through it all, Chris could do nothing but watch, the vines still holding him fast. He felt helpless, despite the power that now resided within him -- he could feel it struggling for release from his body, just as he struggled with the vines. _Maybe that's the solution_, he thought. _I keep trying to hold it back, to slow down, when maybe I should just let it free_. He closed his eyes and focused all his attention on himself, feeling his strange new powers coursing through his body, concentrating on bending all that power towards a single purpose. Soon, his outline began to blur as his whole body vibrated, and the plant fibers started to smoke from the friction he generated. _Go faster faster just a little faster_, he told himself, and let the power rip through him at such a velocity that he seemed to glow from within. _Keep going keep going it's starting to break don't give up don't stop don't stop..._

Then the vines suddenly exploded outward, and Chris launched himself at Wise Owl, striking him from behind. Though the shaman went down, he certainly wasn't out, and now concentrated his attack on Chris alone, bathing the young man in eldritch flame. Chris didn't let it deter him in the least, moving so fast that the fire couldn't burn him, until he reached Wise Owl once more. A blind rage had overtaken his mind, and he grabbed hold of the man's hands with such force that he snapped every bone in them. The flames dissipated, but Chris continued to assault Wise Owl, pummeling him with his fists at super-speed, barely noting how much damage he was doing.

The two brothers ran up to him, Hawk yelling, "Chris, for God's sake, stop already!" But Chris couldn't stop, it was as if some switch had been thrown inside him and broken. Seeing no other choice, Hawk struck Chris in the chest with the butt of his flintlock, knocking him away from Wise Owl. Pointing at their uncle, he said to Small Eagle, "Keep an eye on him," then went over to Chris, who was kneeling on the ground, an intense white light enveloping his body. "Can you hear me, Chris? Are you alright?"

"_Can't...stop..._" Just getting out those two words was a struggle -- he felt like he was bursting apart at the seams. Lightning seemed to pour out of his eyes as he looked up at Hawk. "_Help...help me..._" He reached out towards the man, but before he could make contact, Chris lost his grip on himself, and he felt the power within him suddenly burst forth in all directions, taking him with it. His mind and body had become pure energy, and he raced across the world, weaving and overlapping with himself a thousand times a second as he saw and heard everything all at once. He saw the sands in the African desert and the highest point in the Himalayas. He saw the bustling streets of downtown Boston and a tiny fishing village in rural Japan. He saw a couple making love on a boat in the Indian Ocean and a man in Texas beating his wife while his newborn son wailed. All this and more was laid bare before him, the images blurring together as his mind tried to take it all in. Then Chris saw a woman standing in the middle of a room crying while a man tried to comfort her...and after a moment, Chris realized he was looking at his grandparents, and they were standing in his bedroom back in Manchester. He wanted to stop right there, he wanted to tell them he was alive and that he missed them, that he didn't care about the lies anymore, he wasn't angry at them anymore. But try as he might, he couldn't stop, he just kept going faster, and, the images became more disjointed, to the point where Chris wasn't sure if they were real or hallucination. He saw battles rolling over the nation, whole states fighting against one another, the land chewed up and soaked with blood. He saw great moving machines piloted by men, first on the ground, then in the sky...then he saw men in the sky _without_ machines, their clothes bright and their faces hidden as they rose above lesser mortals. He saw more wars, each one worse than the last, and bigger, more terrible machines to aid in those wars. He saw things that he didn't even have words for, things that he wasn't sure the human eye was meant to see, and still he went faster, until the images disappeared and all he saw was light, beautiful, multicolored light, and it was singing to him, it was calling to him, pulling him into its embrace, and he welcomed it.

_Chris...come back, Chris..._

There was a voice in his head. He thought it was coming from the light at first, then he realized that it was coming from that other world, that old world, where people lied and bled and died, and he didn't want any part of that anymore.

_You've got to pull yourself together, Chris...slow down..._

Slow down? He couldn't do that, he'd tried, and it hurt. No more of that.

_You have to try...I can lead you back, but you have to make the first move..._

He looked at the light surrounding him, listened to the wondrous sounds emanating from it. Why would he want to leave such a beautiful, peaceful place?

_Because if you stay here, you'll never be able to go home again...you'll never see your family or friends again...please, Chris, come back to us..._

The image of his grandparents came into his mind, and the emotions he'd felt upon seeing them began to well up once more, along with loving memories of them that he'd tried to deny while he'd been angry with them...and he knew that, if he gave himself up to this place, all of that would be washed away, good and bad. He wouldn't be Chris Maxwell anymore, he wouldn't even be human, he'd just be a tiny part of a vast force flowing through the universe. Despite the siren song it made, giving up his humanity to hear it forever was too high a price.

At the edge of his vision, he could see a wisp of gossamer, and he knew instinctively what it was. He reached for it, let it take hold as it pulled him away from this place, back through time and space and all the myriad dimensions he'd passed through in the blink of an eye until he could feel the weight of his own body and the blood pumping through his veins and the breath in his lungs and he suddenly fell forward, a whole person once more, into Hawk's arms. He felt like a newborn babe, gasping and blinking as he tried to readjust to having substance again. He could still feel the power inside him, but it was no longer overwhelming. In fact, it reminded him of the first dream he'd had in Echo Valley, with the wind blowing through him, causing his body to tingle -- in the back of his mind, he knew that he could call forth that power just as easily as one flexes a muscle, but for now, it was relaxed and at rest. He sat up and looked at Hawk, saying, "Thank you...I don't know how you did it, but thank you."

"Don't thank me," Hawk replied, and nodded towards his younger brother, who was kneeling right beside the two of them. "He did all the work."

Chris turned to Small Eagle, puzzled, and the man simply smiled and tapped a finger against his temple, saying, "It's never steered me wrong before."

A quick, barking laugh burst out of Chris at that, and he embraced Small Eagle. Hawk threw an arm around Chris as well, and the three men stayed like that for a few moments, each one grateful to have made it through the whole ordeal in one piece.

* * *

From the broad plateau atop Table Mountain, the whole of Echo Valley could be seen. The trees below wore their autumn colors, and children laughed as they ran through the carpets of leaves that had already fallen from them. Women prepared for the coming winter by making blankets or mending the hide-covered tipis, while the men went off hunting to make sure the camp was well-stocked with provisions. It was a peaceful scene, but Chris's eye kept lingering on two particular spots in the valley: the patch of charred and upturned earth where he and Wise Owl had fought a week ago, and the grayish-white scar on the land that marked where the shaman's tipi had stood before Hawk, Small Eagle, and Chris set it aflame and sowed the area with salt, just to be sure that the deadly magic Wise Owl had brought to the valley wouldn't taint their lives in the future. "I could have prevented all this," he muttered. "If I'd listened better to Ahwehota, and to my dreams..."

"You did listen," Hawk replied, standing beside him. "You just didn't speak the language yet. Reckon you're getting a pretty good handle on it now, though."

"I suppose I am, but if I'd been a little more open-minded to the whole idea of magic in the first place, instead of thinking it was nothing but superstition..."

"You can't keep beating yourself up over this, Chris. If'n anybody's guilty of anything, it's me: I lived around the man my whole life, and I had no clue what lay in his heart. Even Small Eagle didn't know, and he's got the touch -- reckon Wise Owl figured out a way to mask his thoughts just in case." Hawk sighed and ran a hand through the blonde streak in his hair. "Nothing like finding out you've got a crazy uncle, eh?"

"Maybe not so crazy. I hate to say it, but he did have one point: if things keep going the way they are, the whites will wipe out the Indians in the next few decades."

"Not completely. Things will change for us, of course, and we'll have to leave some of the old ways behind, but that's natural. You white folks are changing too, you know: just as we're adapting to white ways, some of your folks are taking a shine to ours. And of course, there's you." He smiled. "If'n the spirits trust you enough to give you such a power, I'd call that a sign of good faith between your people and mine."

Chris looked down at his hands, thinking of the power that lay within him now. "I just hope I can live up to it. I'm still trying to understand what I can do with this, and to be perfectly honest, it scares me a little sometimes. After I'd gotten lost in...in whatever that place was, I keep thinking I'm going to slip again and get trapped there."

"Maybe the spirits took you there on purpose, as a warning of what might happen if you let your powers control you instead of the other way around." He put an arm around Chris's shoulders, saying, "Try as we might, we can't always fathom the ways of the spirits. Hell, even I question them sometimes. After I left you at Fort Collins, I sat down with Ahwehota and had a good long talk with him about your vision. I told him that you were a very smart young man, but too white to grasp what you were seeing, and that he'd best not involve you in whatever awful thing was coming down the road, 'cause you wouldn't be able to handle it. And you know what he said? He said that just 'cause you weren't the obvious choice didn't mean you weren't the _right_ choice."

Chris thought about this for a moment, then said, "So you really _did_ dump me at Fort Collins because I didn't believe in what Ahwehota was telling me."

"Well, if you want to get technical...yeah, I did." The two of them laughed good and hard over that, then Hawk said, "But it did turn out to be the right choice, now didn't it? You were there to receive the gift, and you used it to save the lives of all those Blackfoot...and that is a fact that you seem to keep forgetting." He pointed down at the valley, towards a cluster of tipis that belonged to the newest residents of Echo Valley: nearly forty Blackfoot men, women, and children who had survived the Army's assault on their camp. "Those folks are alive because of you, and they accepted our invitation to settle here in the valley because they believe in you. They know that whomever caries the power of the Windrunner must be worthy of it, even if he is just a skinny little white boy. So you keep that in mind the next time you think you failed these people."

"I'll do my best." He turned away from the valley and looked to the east, towards the vast world beyond Table Mountain. "I should get going, before I lose my nerve."

"How long do you think it'll take you to get back to Manchester?"

"Don't know. I'm trying not to push myself too hard, plus there's the Mississippi to cross...maybe ten minutes?"

"That long? Hell, I think you can do better than that." Hawk clapped the young man on the back. "You say hello to your grandparents for me, okay?"

"That I will. Maybe next time, I'll even bring you along," he replied, smiling. "I think it'd be best if it was just me and them for this first visit, though. We've got a lot of things to catch up on." Chris took a few steps away from Hawk, then paused. "But I might leave out the Windrunner stuff for right now. You know how white folks are."

"All too well. Godspeed, Chris." Hawk raised his hand to wave farewell, but the young man was already in motion, becoming a bright streak of lightning across the plateau. A few seconds later, a clap of thunder rang out over the mountainside, though the sky was clear. "Your son's gonna make you proud, Jim," Hawk said under his breath as he made his way back down to the valley. "It took him a while, but he's finally figured out what to do with himself: he's gonna travel the world, learning as he goes and using his gift to help people of all races, wherever they need him...and if the spirits blessed him the same as they blessed Ahwehota, I know that Chris Maxwell will be helping people for many generations to come."

A warm breeze blew across Hawk's face, and he smiled and nodded in return.

**EPILOGUE**

_I have to get a damn transfer_, Private Humbert thought as he tossed another shovel-load of dirt out of the hole. _I sure as Hell didn't join Army to dig graves._

It wasn't just the grave-digging that had gotten the private thinking about a transfer: the past week had been filled with one crazy thing after another, and he'd had it. First there'd been those men that got mutilated, then there was that...well, he didn't know _what_ it was that'd ripped through the Blackfoot camp when he and the rest of the regiment had gone to round them up, but he'd damn-near soiled himself when it shattered the rifle in his hands. And to top it all off, that Maxwell fella disappeared for a day, then came back with some Indian tossed over his shoulder, all bound and gagged and beat to holy Hell. Before Maxwell disappeared again, he told Colonel Haggard that the sorry dirt-worshipper was the one responsible for killing those men, not the Blackfoot. How he was so sure of that fact, Humbert didn't know, but one thing was certain: that damn Indian was crazier than a shithouse rat. The whole time they had him locked up in the stockade, the fella kept on chanting something in Injun-talk and carving lines in his skin with his fingernails...which was no mean feat, considering both his hands were mangled up something awful. Even as they dragged him up the gallows to be hanged, that damn Indian just wouldn't shut up, not until the rope went taut and snapped his neck but good. And now Humbert was stuck digging a grave for the sorry sonovabitch. He personally thought they should've just dumped the body out where they take the manure every day, but the colonel said that even a murdering heathen deserved a decent Christian burial. Of course, the colonel wasn't the one who had to _dig _the damn grave, now was he?

He pulled himself out of the hole and walked over to the wagon. The corpse was laid out in the back, wrapped in canvas and cinched tight with a rope -- the burial may have been Christian, but the Army apparently considered the coffin optional. "Okay, fella, time to move into your new home," he said as he pulled the bundle off the wagon, then started dragging it across the ground. Nearly halfway to the grave, the rope worked its way loose, and an arm flopped out. "Aw, Jesus," Humbert groaned, "now I'll actually have to _touch_ the damn thing." He knelt down and gingerly took hold of the arm, bracing himself for the cold, clammy feel of dead flesh. To his surprise, though, it didn't feel that way at all. In fact, the skin felt strangely warm.

Then the arm suddenly jerked out of his delicate grip and shot towards his throat, the mutilated fingers digging into Humbert's windpipe. He struggled to break free, but it was already too late: his face began to wither and turn gray, and soon his entire body fell to dust beside the bundle. Not long after, the rest of the former corpse emerged from the bundle, albeit with difficulty: the hands were still in horrid shape, with two of the fingers on the right hand completely gone, and the head lolled uncontrollably to the side due to the hangman's break, not to mention the numerous other cuts and contusions that would take months to heal at this rate...but Wise Owl was still alive. He'd had to make unholy bargains with some of the lowest entities that lurk in the dark realms, but in the end, they'd granted him what he desired, and saved his soul from oblivion. There was much he'd have to give them in return, but once his debt was paid, Wise Owl would be free to extract his revenge upon those who'd made him debase himself so.

He crawled slowly across the ground, gnarled hands grasping for purchase as he dragged his broken body towards the wagon. The horse whinnied as he neared, sensing his new, unnatural state and wanting to get away, but Wise Owl whispered a spell that forced it to stay put until he had a chance to pull the life-force from it, like he'd done with the soldier. It was one of the few spells he had left in his possession, thanks to the bastard Sons of Tomahawk and the thieving white child, but in time, he would have more, and when he had enough, their blood would run through Echo Valley in rivers.

_But first, I must tend to myself_, Wise Owl thought, and grabbed hold of the screaming horse's hind leg.

**THE END**


End file.
